


A Beautiful Disaster

by Isilien_Elenihin



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Gen, Human Nature, episode rewrite, the family of blood - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-17
Updated: 2012-09-17
Packaged: 2017-11-14 11:47:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 37,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/514895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isilien_Elenihin/pseuds/Isilien_Elenihin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor is forced into hiding by creatures who want to use him to live forever--but in doing so he places everything that he is in the hands of Rose Tyler.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Some quotes taken from 'Human Nature' and 'The Family of Blood.' Inspired by the song 'Catalyst' by Anna Nalick.

He woke to the sound of someone singing, real, actual singing—not the tinny screech of the radio that preceded his entry into the waking world. He opened his eyes. He was not in his bed. His room, unlike the room in which he now resided, did not contain copious amounts of pink. Of course, calling the place he slept a "room" was a stretch. It was a cubby, really, behind the garage where he worked. He was lying on a bed, not in a cot, and the quilt that covered him was warm and thick. Like the rest of the furnishings in the room it was obviously used but in good condition. Light filtered through the blinds and danced across the floor.

He groaned. His was _pounding_. He hadn't had a hangover like this in—well—he couldn't remember, probably because he kept a bottle of whiskey on his nightstand. There was no whiskey in this room. He was in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room that looked like it belonged to a girl. He rolled out of the bed. At least he was still clothed, although he had no idea where his shoes had got to. He stumbled out of the room and into a hallway. The singing became louder as he walked away from the bedroom.

The hallway opened into what looked like a living room. The place was small, but tidy. A couch dominated the room. A pillow was crushed into a corner and a blanket was crumpled at one end. He felt suddenly guilty. Whoever had taken him in obviously hadn't spent the night with him. He pushed the feeling away.

His boots were lying next to the couch and his jacket was folded neatly and sitting across the back. He shrugged it on and finally he could breathe again. The jacket, battered black leather armor, kept the world at bay. In just a jumper and trousers he felt naked, exposed. He contemplated the boots for a minute, but left them where they lay. He doubted that he'd be running any time soon, and they made it hard to move around quietly. The soldier in his mind wanted to know the layout, to have the exits of the little flat fixed—just in case.

He needed a drink. Really, he needed several. Enough to make the pounding in his head stop. It throbbed a counterpoint to the girl's voice, which was coming from in front of him and a little to the left. He crossed the living room and stopped in the doorway of the kitchen.

The singer was standing at the sink. Light poured in from a window over the counter and made her blonde hair glow golden. She was barefoot like him, but unlike him she wore proper pajamas: fuzzy blue bottoms with green frogs and Lilli pads that sat low on her hips and a pale blue tank top that didn't quite meet the waistband of the bottoms. Her hair was mussed from sleep. She was singing something low and sweet. Her voice was beautiful in a fresh, untrained kind of way. She'd never had lessons. He could tell. He was, after all, a genius.

He shifted and the floor creaked beneath his feet. She whirled around and broke into a grin when she saw him. He blinked. Why was she looking at him like that?

"G'morning," she said, a note of teasing in her voice. "Thought you'd sleep the day away."

He only grunted. No use encouraging her, whoever she was.

Her face fell a bit, but she recovered quickly. "Are you hungry? I made eggs." She gestured at a pair of plates on the counter next to her. He approached them cautiously and sniffed them. They looked all right, and smelled all right. He grabbed the offered plate and fork and slouched into a chair behind the small kitchen table. She joined him. They ate in silence. Something about her bothered him. She was—familiar, almost, even though he was sure he'd never seen her before in his waking life.

Right. _Waking_ being the operative word. Fire and smoke and death rolled through his mind's eye, accompanied by the face of the girl in front of him. Running and fear and blood on his hands. _"It's not your fault, and you know what—_ her voice broke— _I wouldn't have missed it for the world_."

"Hello?" He blinked. She was waving a hand in front of his face. Her tone was light but her eyes were serious. "Are you okay?"

He glared at her. "M fine."

She clapped. "You can talk! Didn't think you knew how." More teasing. What was she doing in his dreams? More silence. "My name's Rose Tyler," she said finally. "What's yours?"

"John," he replied grudgingly. "John Smith."

"Nice to meet you, John." She looked down, suddenly shy. "Don't usually go bringing blokes home, but you were real far gone, and I couldn't just leave you to sleep it off in that alley."

He pushed the plate away and stood, suddenly furious. "An you figured I was safe," he spat. She looked at him with wide eyes. Good. This was a lesson she needed to learn, and fast. He moved around the table quicker than most people would have thought possible. He looked sort of stocky in his blocky leather jacket but years in the military gave him lightning reflexes. He hand her up against the wall, one hand over her mouth and the other holding her arms behind her head before she could blink. "Thank you for giving me a place to sleep," he said quietly. "But don't ever make the mistake of thinking that I'm safe, Rose Tyler. Now forget about me." He released her and stormed out of the flat.

* * *

She stood ramrod straight and still until the door slammed behind him. Then she let herself fall back against the wall and hugged herself. Tears dripped down her face. For a second, just a second, she thought she saw something familiar in his eyes, something that was the Doctor and not this John Smith who had taken his place. And then it was gone. She rubbed her wrist absently. He hadn't hurt her, at least, not with his hands. He was trying to scare her, just like he did when he showed up at her flat. He even said almost the same thing: " _forget me, Rose Tyler_ " Like that was going to happen.

Her eyes drifted to the calendar nailed to the wall. Five months and eleven days left. She reached beneath her tank top and pulled out a sturdy silver chain. Nestled next to an ordinary looking yale key, a pocket watch decorated in the swirling writing that belonged to the Doctor's people hummed softly. If she held it to her ear she fancied she could hear him talking to her, reassuring her, thanking her. She stroked it gently. Five months and eleven days and this would be over.

She dropped the watch and the key back down her shirt, picked up her phone, and dialed. "Hiya Jack. I found him."

* * *

Guilt overtook him as he stepped out into the brisk morning air. He shouldn't have been so harsh. She was just a child, really, and like a child she'd done something kind without thought of the possible consequences. But what if there had been consequences beyond a bit of a scare? What if, instead of him, she'd taken home one of the sleezeballs who hung around outside the bar? They didn't have his scruples when it came to things like sex and money. She could have been robbed, or worse, raped or killed.

_Blood coated the little couch, so much blood in a human body. Her hair was spread out on the floor like a halo, her eyes blank and staring, blood staining the little blue tank top and coating the Lilli pads and their corresponding frogs. A deep wound almost severed her head from her body. Her pajama bottoms were bunched around her ankles and a look of horror and fear was frozen on her face._

He shook his head, trying to clear away the image, but it seemed like it was burned into his mind. It made him ill to think about someone doing that to her. Memories of Susan bubbled to the surface—her laugh, her smile, the way she screamed every time she saw a spider.

He needed a drink and he needed one now. He checked his watch, and sighed. It was eight a.m. on Friday, the 17th of October. He was already late for work. The drink would have to wait.

* * *

Jack Harkness sat straight up. "Really, Rose? Are you sure?"

A watery laugh spilled out of his Vortex Manipulator. Stupid thing was burned out, but at least the comlink still worked. "He's the _Doctor_ , Jack, of course I'm sure." She sniffed.

"What's he done?" he asked sympathetically.

She sighed. "S just, he doesn't remember me at all."

Jack nodded, even though he knew she couldn't see. "Yeah, but he told us that would happen, Rosie."

Another sigh. "I know Jack, 's just, 's like—like if my mum forgot about me. He's the most important person in the world."

For more reasons than one, Jack knew, although he also knew it would be a cold day in hell before either of them admitted it. He looked around his apartment. It was a studio—small, but serviceable. His years in the Time Agency taught him the value of organization and he put it to good use. Originally he and Rose were going to rent together, but the Doctor vetoed that idea. It would be harder for the Family to track them, he said, if they split up. Well, maybe it would, Jack thought, but conversation over the phone/comlink was much less satisfying than in person.

"Only a few more months, Rosie," he said finally.

"I know Jack. Look, thanks for talking. Gotta go now, time to get ready for work."

"First day, right?"

"Yeah." She sounded a little better, a little more hopeful. "See you later."

"Not if I see you first," he responded with a cheeky grin. She laughed and hung up.

* * *

John Smith spent his time at the garage counting down until he could get his next drink. The work was monotonous and far beneath his considerable skills. He could dismantle the beat-up vehicle that currently occupied less than half his attention with his eyes closed and mostly drunk and still reassemble it better than the factory could have. He wiped his hand on the rag that lay next to him and took a small swig out of the flask he always carried. Jefferson didn't like when he drank on the job, but the man could stuff it. A little over three weeks at the place and customers asked for John by name, after they got over actually meeting someone named John Smith, that is. He couldn't understand why people were so fixated on his name. It was just a designation, something that held little to no importance to him. The only reason he used one at all was so that other people had something to call him.

When Mike locked the door, signaling that it was five p.m. and the workday was officially over, John was the first to leave. He went, of course, to the only place he ever went besides the nearest liquor store, a few local take-out places, and the cubby that served as his home: he went to the bar. It was a small, dingy place, although it was clean—a step up from a great many places he'd been. It was the darkness that made it seem run-down. Unlike the bars that catered to students or young people, John's place of choice was patronized mostly by people like him—working class functional alcoholics. There was a smattering of a younger crowd—the children of regulars, sometimes, and a few business people who looked like they got lost (perhaps on purpose). A small stage up against one wall was the only bright point in the building. Usually it was empty, but tonight a drummer, a guitarist, and a base player lounged beneath the lights. An upright piano sat off to one side, looking bereft without its accompanying player. He blinked. Right. Friday. Live music over the weekends.

John slid into his usual seat and frowned. There was something different about the stage tonight.

"Hello handsome," an accented voice—American—cut through his thoughts. John glanced at the bartender, who was smiling at him. He dismissed the pretty boy with a sharp nod and a request for whiskey—lots of it—and returned his attention to the stage. Ah, yes. Tonight a microphone stood in front of the three musicians. There'd been a singer when he'd first come to the bar, a man who was complete rubbish, but he'd left by the second week. John snorted. Good riddance. He'd managed to murder far too many songs before he'd been ousted.

A soft "clink" alerted him to his drink's presence. John downed one shot and grabbed another, turning to face the stage as a murmur ran through the bar. A woman was walking to the front of the stage. Unlike most of the women in the crowd, she wore a dress, a long black dress that hugged her body in the style of classic Hollywood gowns. It looked like something out of a jazz club in the 40's. Her hair was blonde and pulled into a simple bun. She was smart, letting the dress speak for itself without garish embellishment like most young women.

He was staring, he realized, and he stared harder when he realized who it was. Well, it would be her. The girl from the morning, Rose, stood on the stage looking very different from the last time he saw her. Her eyes were smoky and her lips were red, very red. The spotlight cast shadows on her cheeks and down her neck, playing up the gold of her hair and casting her eyes into darkness.

The drummer began a soft rhythm with two wire brushes. The guitar came in next, followed closely by the pianist who had returned from wherever he'd been hiding. Rose held the microphone in one hand and stood perfectly still. Her eyes wandered over the crowd and came to rest on him. She knew him.

Then she drew a breath and began to sing. Her voice washed over the people in the bar like a tidal wave. It was rich and smooth and somehow familiar. He recognized the tune she'd been singing that morning. It was a strange choice, he thought, although it suited the place. It was an older song, American, and sad.

Her eyes remained on his as she swayed slightly, moving to the soft beat of the music. He clapped when it was over and she curtsied, flashing a grin at her audience. She sang several other songs, a few ballads, a few classics, a love song or two, but she always returned to the sad songs. She sang those best, he thought. Something about her eyes, like she was pouring her whole heart into them. It was hours later when she made her final farewell. Appreciative applause followed her out.

"That was beautiful, baby doll." It was the American again.

"Thanks Jack," she said with a giggle. He knew that voice. He'd heard it early that morning, and then later on the stage. John glanced over in time to see Rose give the pretty bartender a kiss on the cheek. The boy's eyes flickered to John, and Rose followed them. She cocked an eyebrow and slid onto the stool next to him.

"You can still sit up straight," she noted. "S an improvement from last night."

He contemplated ignoring her, but decided not to on a whim. "It's early yet." They sat in silence for a moment. "Why the sad songs?" he asked finally.

She blinked, but tipped her head thoughtfully. "Everyone's got sadness," she replied after a while. "Singin about it makes it easier. Shows how something beautiful can come out of something painful."

He had nothing to say to that, so he said nothing. Instead he downed another shot. She watched him with a studied intensity that he found disconcerting. Obviously she had ignored his advice from earlier. It felt good to talk to someone, but she was a child and he, well, he was a monster. Men like him didn't rescue the princess and live happily-ever-after. Men like him were the things waiting in the darkness to destroy anything they touched. He grabbed another shot.

"Keep up like that an I'll be dragging you back to my flat again," she commented.

He waved a hand in dismissal. "Genius, me. Know how much I can drink." And he intended to get very drunk tonight. If he could drink enough then the dreams wouldn't come. Fire and ice and blood, rage and hate and death. And sometimes her face, her voice. _Better with two._

Why was she in his dreams?

She snorted. "Right. An that's why you spent the night in my room 'stead of in an alley."

He growled. "Why do you care?"

His question seemed to take her by surprise. She looked at him with wide, honest eyes. "Don't like seeing people hurting," she replied quietly. "An you, you look like you're hurting." She reached out and cupped his cheek with her hand. It was the alcohol that let her do it, he decided, not his own desire to be touched. Not the loneliness that he was drowning in. Not some twisted need for absolution. "Nobody deserves to hurt that much."  



	2. Chapter 2

He did not, in fact, end up going home with her. He wasn't that far gone by the end of the night, but no matter how many times he told her he was fine, she would not let him walk alone.

"You live here?" she asked, incredulous, as they stopped in front of the shabby mechanic's garage.

He shrugged. "Place to sleep. Close to m'job."

"I guess." She shivered and rubbed her arms through her jacket. It was too light for Oxford in the fall. She'd have to pop into the TARDIS and find something a bit more appropriate. "Well," she said as the silence stretched on, "this is where I leave you then." She smiled at him. "G'Night, John."

"Night, Rose," he replied. They were a bit slurred, but he managed to speak without tripping over his words and walk without tripping over his feet, so it was a good night. She turned to leave, and he most certainly did not watch her walk down the street like he was afraid that she was going to waver and disappear, like she was some kind of ghost or hallucination. Not at all. He ignored her, unlocked the tiny flat behind the shop, and went inside. Right. Not even he believed that.

The dreams came as soon as he closed his eyes. They were always the same—fire and death and blood, so much blood—his own, his family's. Faces swirled in his mind's eye, people he was sure he'd never seen before but knew him, called out to him, named him: _Murderer, Destroyer, the Oncoming Storm, the Deceiver, the man who brings Death in his wake, Thanatos, the Lonely God, the Bringer of Darkness, the last of his kind_. Everything was burning. The universe was on fire. There were screams, so many screams, and then there was silence. Somehow the silence was worse. It clawed at his sanity, ripped him to shreds from the inside out.

He reached for the bottle sitting on his nightstand before he opened his eyes. He wasn't nearly drunk enough yet.

* * *

"Your usual?" Jack Harkness asked John Smith as the man slid onto his customary seat. He grunted his assent and Jack set off to fetch the whisky. Just one more difference between the man and the Doctor, he thought. When he offered to buy the Doctor a drink the alien had dismissed him. _"Can't get drunk, me. Well, I can, but only if I want to. Superior physiology metabolizes the alcohol before it has a chance to affect me_." Well, it affected John Smith and it looked like he'd had a head start. Jack had never seen him sober but after almost three weeks of working at what appeared to be the man's favorite bar he was familiar with the various stages of drunkenness. Right now he put John at mildly inebriated—a few notches higher than his resting status of lightly buzzed.

When he returned with the bottle Rose was walking on stage and John's eyes were fixed on her. The man didn't even turn around when Jack set the bottle and a shot glass on the bar next to him; he poured a drink and downed it without taking his eyes off of the woman in the spotlight.

Jack Harkness believed himself to be a simple man, at least in terms of relationships. He liked sex. He liked sex a lot. He liked to feel good, and sex was a great way to accomplish that. He liked to make other people feel good, and again, sex fit the bill. And he was, if he did say so himself, an expert performer in the sexual arena. He flirted with everyone, because it was a great way to break the ice and insinuate himself into a group of people, or to break the tension in a delicate situation. If he was in a committed relationship, which he tended to avoid because they could get messy unbelievably fast, he was faithful. If he was free, then all bets were off. He respected his partners' decisions and expected them to respect his.

Watching the Doctor and Rose gave him a headache. They were anything _but_ simple. Four-way relationships had nothing on those two. Their actions spoke of deep affection and regard, and a great deal of mutual attraction, but they steadfastly refused to do anything about it. The sheer number of cold showers he'd been forced to take while traveling with them boggled the mind. If it was up to him all three of them would be sharing a bed, but unfortunately he was reduced to watching from the sidelines.

He would have understood if it was one-sided. He knew that Rose wanted the Doctor, that she loved him. It was evident in everything that she did. He knew from the moment that she repelled his advances when they were dancing on his spaceship in 1941 that she was taken. Why else would she turn him down? It wasn't arrogance—well, maybe a bit, but it was more that he knew how attractive other people found him. He worked hard to maintain his skills. But if Rose had pined after the Doctor alone then Jack would have understood the situation.

Despite his protestations otherwise, the Doctor wanted Rose. Jack recognized the 'keep away' signals as soon as he entered the TARDIS. The Time Lord 'remembered' how to dance only when there was a possibility of Rose dancing with someone other than him. And the way he watched her—only, of course, when he knew she wasn't looking. The way his expression softened every time she smiled. Hell, the way he couldn't seem to say no to her. Jack was under no illusions as to why he had originally been brought on the TARDIS. He was sure that the Doctor wouldn't have let him die, but his continued presence was because Rose liked him, and the Doctor wanted to make her happy. And, he allowed himself a moment of indulgence, perhaps because the alien wanted to keep distance between himself and the human woman he loved, and hoped that Jack would provide that distance.

Now he was human, with none of the alien hang ups, but plenty of his own and he still gravitated towards her. Sometimes when she sang he even smiled. Of course, the dresses she wore didn't hurt. Jack grinned as he traced his eyes over her figure. The TARDIS, it seemed, had excellent taste. Was that a sign of her approval? The Doctor said his ship was sentient, and Jack believed him.

He watched John Smith watch Rose Tyler. This would either simplify things between the two of them immensely, or make them even more complicated, although he couldn't quite tell how that was possible.

* * *

She was wearing red that night. It suited her better than the black, John thought. She was too bright to wear such a mournful color. The dress clung to her again, made him aware of her in a way that he found impossible to ignore. She was a child, dammit. Twenty, twenty one years old tops. She should be at home with her mum, or out with her mates, not here, and definitely not with him.

It was difficult for him to remember that she was a child in that dress, and even more so when she looked at him. And when she touched him—he shook himself slightly. He would not think about that, about how right it had felt, her hand on his cheek. He was an old, broken man and she was an innocent girl. He would not be the one to take that from her, to strip away her illusions and let the real world destroy her dreams. Some other man would do that soon enough.

But although her eyes drifted over the crowd, allowing each person to imagine that she was singing to him, they always returned to John. And when she began to sing _that_ song, they remained there.

_So you're taking these pills for to fill up your soul_

_and you're drinking them down with cheap alcohol_

_and I'd be inclined to be yours for the taking_

_and part of this terrible mess that you're making, but me,_

_I'm the catalyst._

The words sunk in this time. Last night he'd been so overwhelmed by the sight and sound of her that he'd ignored what she was saying. It was a coincidence—it had to be. He didn't even know her, really. It wasn't the kind of offer that anyone, least of all her, should be making. He downed another shot. He was going to get properly drunk tonight, drunk enough so he wouldn't dream. His traitorous mind conjured up other ways he could spend the night ensuring a dreamless sleep, most of them involving the girl on the stage and far fewer articles of clothing, but he pushed them away. She was not for him.

* * *

He was weaving on his stool by the time she slid onto the one next to him, and Jack—the pretty American bartender, had cut him off for the night. She set a steadying hand on his shoulder. "Time to go home, John," she said softly. Her eyes were large and dark as she gave him a half-smile. "Before you fall down."

He shrugged her hand away. "M fine."

"You don't look fine," she responded. "An anyway, you let me walk you home last night."

"S not home," he corrected her. "Don' have a home." He turned away. "Go back to your pretty boys, Rose Tyler. Bet Jack'll letchu walk im home."

She stiffened. "Jack's my friend," she responded, her tone carefully even in the way that people are when they are holding anger in check. "And he cut you off, so you might as well go back to your flat if you want to drink yourself into unconsciousness. And since mine is further down the road, you might as well walk with me. Now shift!"

* * *

He stumbled up and out the door, but he wouldn't walk next to her. It shouldn't hurt, but it did. He'd told her that he wouldn't recognize her, that it would be safer that way. He'd told her and Jack that they should watch him from a distance—but it was so hard. She was used to being near him on the TARDIS. Even when they were doing separate tasks they were in close proximity. She read the trashy magazines she loved on the jump seat while he tinkered or handed him tools as he asked for them. If she was in the library watching a movie or television show he was one room over reading. If she was in the pool he was fiddling with something in the hallway or on the surrounding deck. They were hardly ever apart, and having to leave him at the door pulled at her almost as much as watching him self-destruct.

He wasn't the Doctor now; he didn't have the same tragedies hanging over his head. He had nightmares that were all his own. And even if they weren't on the same scale they were driving him into darkness, into a place she wasn't sure she could follow, and it hurt.

* * *

It was becoming a routine, he realized, when he ambled into the bar on Sunday night. He showed up, watched her sing, drank less than he usually did, and when she was finished she came to him. She stopped along the way, chatted with the various bartenders and waitresses and waiters, and always gave Jack a kiss on the cheek after he paid her another outrageous compliment. Some of the regulars called out to her, and she responded with a wave and a smile. She was always smiling, this girl. She even smiled when she looked at him. In fact, sometimes he noticed her smile widen. Sometimes he smiled back. When he realized what he was doing he schooled his face into blankness and he couldn't help but notice that her face fell every time. _Stay away_ , he wanted to tell her. _Turn your back and run. People die when I'm around_. His lips refused to form the words. He wanted her safely away from him, but he also wanted her close. It reminded him of a saying, something about cake, some silly human phrase that he couldn't quite place.

Well, of course it was human. What else would it be?

* * *

Rose wasn't there when he went to the bar on Monday.

"She doesn't work Mondays and Tuesdays," Jack told him after a few rounds.

"Who?" He was being deliberately obtuse. Jack gave him a look that said quite plainly that he knew exactly who. John ignored him. He was in a foul mood. Work had been more boring than usual, or maybe he'd just been more anxious. He'd ripped his favorite jumper—the green one—and now he couldn't seem to get a comfortable buzz going.

"Rose, you idiot," the man said after a while.

John grunted. "What's it to me?" Jack gave him another long, measuring look, and John bristled.

"You are such a miserable git without her," he said after a while, and turned back to his work. "She'll be here on Wednesday," he called over his shoulder. "Or you could always go see her. You know where her flat is."

John ignored him. He stayed in his cubicle on Tuesday and drank himself into oblivion. He did not dream.  



	3. Chapter 3

Rose pulled the blanket closer around her shoulders as she huddled in the jump seat that sat on the outer edge of the TARDIS console room. Five months and six days until she could open the watch and this whole surreal experience would be over. The Doctor would be back to his normal—well, as normal as he ever was—self, and they'd be off again, flying around Time and Space. She sighed and shoved herself off her unyielding, leather-covered perch and meandered over to the control console. She punched in the sequence of buttons that the Doctor had drilled into her brain—she could probably do it in her sleep—and called up his instructional video. She skipped past most of it. Their first week in Oxford she'd practically memorized it, and found what she was looking for at the end of the tape.

"—so bugger off Jack!" the Doctor said jovially from the screen. "This bit's for Rose." He paused, waiting for Jack to leave the room, which he had done when they'd first found the message waiting for them. The Doctor's smirk faded into a gentle smile, one she fancied he only directed at her. "Rose Tyler," he said fondly. "This is probably one of the hardest things I've ever asked you to do—yet, anyway—and I'm sorry, but I know that you're up for it. You're brave and you're clever and don't let anyone tell you otherwise, even me. Keep Jack in line. The last thing we need is miniature versions of him running around. And I just wanted to say—" He looked uncertain, an instance that was rare enough to note. "I just wanted to say thanks. And if something happens, if the Family shows up and there's no other way, you know what to do." He paused. "Open the watch." The seriousness on his face was replaced by a bright, manic grin. "See you in six months!" Then the video flickered and the screen turned black.

She sighed and moved away from the console. "The show must go on," she murmured as she paused by the doors. The TARDIS hummed sympathetically and Rose patted the wall. "Thanks girl," she said with a sad smile. "I know you miss him too."

* * *

She was already there when John walked into the bar on Wednesday night. Her waitressing uniform clung to her form like her dresses, although it was more modest than most bars he'd seen. She wore dark jeans that looked like they were painted on and a white V-necked top. She balanced her tray with practiced ease as she floated through the scattering of patrons. John ordered his usual, and to his annoyance had to explain what it was. Apparently Jack wasn't working tonight. He should be happy. He should be grateful to have a night without the other man's pointed looks in Rose's direction and obvious hints as to what he should do with her, or his casual prying into a life that was definitely none of his business. To his surprise John found that he missed Jack's teasing laughter and easy smile along with his knowledge. He didn't have to explain his usual to Jack.

As if summoned by thought the door of the bar swung open and Jack sauntered inside accompanied by Joan Redfern. John's eyebrows rose. Well, that was an unexpected development. Oliver Redfern, Joan's husband, had run the bar until his death six years ago, at which time she took over the business. She was quiet and gentle but fiercely protective of her employees. She was everyone's mother, although she had no children of her own, and with her strawberry-blond hair floating around her face in soft waves instead of pulled tightly back in her customary severe bun she was quite pretty. Her clothes added to the image. Her work outfit was less than flattering, and the skirt and blouse she wore made her look years younger.

Jack made his way into the bar, leading Joan behind him. They were holding hands, John noted. If he cared he would find that interesting, but he didn't care. Not at all, about either of them. What they got up to was their own business. He rolled his eyes as Jack sketched a cheeky salute. He nodded to Joan. "Ma'am."

"John," she replied with a smile. Joan Redfern was a rare woman, in that she knew when to leave well enough alone. If he wanted to talk, she let him talk, and if he didn't than she didn't push him, unlike some people—some people being the man who accompanied her and the blond girl who had just noticed his entrance.

"Jack!" Rose cried brightly and swooped in to great the newcomers. He managed to hug her without spilling her tray, an achievement that impressed John just a little. He whispered something in her ear and she gave him a smack on the arm. She turned to John and opened her mouth to speak, but a voice hollered from across the room. She smiled apologetically and turned away to answer the impatient person.

John didn't mind, well, he didn't mind much. Or at least, that's what he told himself. In reality he was quite irritated, which was surprising. He shouldn't be upset. He should be happy that he didn't have to deal with her for a while, but like Jack, he found that he was starting to miss her concern, as ill placed as it was.

He watched her as she wove through the tables, pausing here and there to greet regulars and take orders. She smiled and people he'd never seen with any other expression than a scowl smiled back. If he was more self-aware, he'd realize that he numbered in that group. She didn't belong here, he decided. He'd known all along, ever since he saw her up on the stage, but it was startlingly clear as he watched her work. She was a bright spot in deep darkness.

Everyone in the Big Bad Wolf—odd name for a bar, that, he thought—had their shadows. Joan had lost her husband to the Iraqi War. Jenny, another waitress and one of Rose's friends, was trapped in an abusive relationship and refused to get help. Most of the regulars were alcoholics who spent their money on booze instead of food or shelter. Some of them were homeless. For all his easy charm and smiles, Jack carried himself like someone who knew the business end of a gun and John knew with a certainty that was crystal clear that he'd taken lives. As for himself—he had more blood on his hands than anyone else in the room, possibly than anyone else in the city.

And she burned in front of him—glowed with something that looked like innocence. She would scorch him if he drew too near, but something inside him screamed to feel warm again. It was for her own good that he pushed her away, he told himself. It wasn't that he was afraid.

It was too much of a lie even for him. "Coward, every time," he muttered and turned back to his drink.

* * *

She was waiting for him when he exited the bar. They walked in silence and this time he let her stay beside him. She was grateful for that, even though she knew better than to voice her appreciation. If she spoke about it he'd be embarrassed and then he'd probably refuse to let her walk with him. She slowed when they approached the garage in front of his flat, but he did not stop.

"Where are you going?" she asked after she caught up with him. He was a fast walker; she'd nearly had to run.

"Walkin' you home," he responded gruffly. "All sorts out at night."

She opened her mouth to protest, to assert her ability to get home safely, and then thought better of it. She smiled. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it." He said it like he meant it.

He left her at the foot of the stairwell to her flat. "You could come inside," she offered. "Get warm before you head out."

He shook his head. "No need." He thought it was wiser not to say that going inside would make it that much harder to leave, and he was already unwilling.

"Right," she said after a while. "Good night, then."

"Night." He watched her slip her key into the lock, watched her push open the heavy wooden door. She gave him a little wave before she shut it. He smiled in reply. He forced himself to turn away when he saw the light stream through one of the windows on the second floor. He was forty-two years old, for Christ's sake. He did not mope around like a teenager with a crush and he most certainly did not stalk young women half his age. She was home safe. His job was done. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket and turned up the collar against the wind. A strange feeling of foreboding washed over him and he turned to face the window one last time. The silhouette of her face greeted him, black against the golden glow of the blinds. He sighed, and headed back to the shop.

* * *

"John!" He bit back a curse as Mike's yell made him jump.

"Don't do that!" he snapped as he picked up the spanner from where he'd dropped it on the floor. Really, why did people think that startling veterans was a good idea? The military had spent years drilling very specific reactions into him. One of these days someone was going to get too close and get hurt before he realized what was happening.

His boss held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Sorry, but there's someone asking for you. A girl—blond, pretty, about so tall." He held his hand just below his chin.

John wiped his grease-stained hands on the rag that hung a hook fastened to the wall. "Be there in a mo'."

Mike grinned. "Take your time. I don't object to keeping her company." The other man glowered at his back as he retreated to the front desk.

As he had suspected after Mike described his visitor, Rose was waiting for him in the lobby. His boss gave him a pointed look and then left, citing pressing paperwork. Rose commiserated for a moment, and then wished him a good day.

"Aye aye, then." John said by way of greeting.

Rose held up a set of keys. "I've got a patient for you."

"Which one would that be?" he asked. She pointed to the car just outside. It was a sleek thing, one of those classic cars from the 60's—American, and screaming red. He blinked. "Didn't peg you as the sort to drive a muscle car," he mused.

She laughed. "S not mine. It belongs to Jack."

He raised an eyebrow. "So you and him—"

"God, no!" she exclaimed. "Not that he wouldn't, mind, but we're not." Relief washed over him. "He's just not good at—domestics."

John cocked his head at her. "You do his laundry too?"

Rose grinned. "I've got some self-respect, thanks. He takes it to the dry cleaners." She sighed, a martyred expression sliding across her face. "But someone's got to look after him, and as the most constant person in his life, it falls to me." She handed him the key. "It's leaking oil something fierce. Probably a worn-out hose."

"Jack tell you that?" He let skepticism color his voice.

"Nah," she replied. "He's more of a ship man." She paused by the door and flashed him a smile. "See you tonight."

"Go on, get," he replied in mock irritation. "Some of us have work to do." She laughed her way out the door. The shop seemed colder without her, and larger. He told himself that he was looking forward to the evening for the alcohol, not the company, and went back to work.

He'd learned in his years as a mechanic that a car could tell an observant person a lot about its owner. Jack's car was no exception. The man obviously liked a bit of flash—it was a car designed to turn heads. Of course, he'd known the other man was a show-off just from looking at him. Everything about him was perfectly placed—hair, smile, salacious expression. His car was tidy too. The black leather was immaculate and John wouldn't be surprised if Jack wiped it down daily. He thought about examining the glove compartment, but decided that he really didn't want to know what the pretty bartender kept in his car. Instead he opened up the hood.

John was surprised when Rose offered any kind of opinion about the car and its issues. Most girls that he'd met who were her age were more concerned with the latest celebrity gossip and getting plastered than the workings of automobiles. He was even more surprised when she was right. It was a relatively easy fix, one that Jack, if he was mechanically inclined, should have had no trouble identifying and replacing. He was being childish, he knew. It was petty and juvenile to feel a sense of satisfaction in the knowledge that he could do something that the other man couldn't. It also warmed him from the inside out.

* * *

He was still in a decent mood when he slid into his customary seat at the bar. Jack was off again, but even having to instruct his replacement couldn't put a dampener on John's relatively good cheer. He spotted Rose across the room, tray held high, full glasses sparkling in the low light. He'd have to ask her about the car thing. She intrigued him in a way that most people failed to do. He'd seen the best and worst of humanity, with a heavy emphasis on the worst, and he fancied that he could predict with a decent amount of accuracy what people would do. She confused his patterns and equations and acted in a way that was unexpected. It was a tad unsettling, but it perked his curiosity.

There were more young people about tonight than usual, he noted. While they were in Oxford they were a bit away from the University and the Big Bad Wolf wasn't exactly one of the popular hang-outs, not for that crowd. It was a working-man's place, anonymous in the way that small towns were—in the way that everyone knew but didn't say. Rose was talking animatedly with two of the newcomers and he felt himself begin to glower. The boys were about her age, perhaps a bit younger. She seemed most friendly with the blond one. The other looked to be of Indian descent. Students, he thought, noting the pen tucked behind one ear and the backpack slung on the ground by the blond one's feet. He turned back to his whiskey.

He knew they were trouble from the moment they walked into the bar. The door slammed open and four young men sauntered in. John glanced at them and snorted. Students again, but in a different league than Rose's friends. They took in the bar as if they were judging it and found it lacking. He bristled. Arrogance got under his skin, and those fops were dripping with it. Their voices floated through the murky air, and his assumption was rewarded. Their precise accents grated on his ears, were distinctly out of place surrounded by the warm cadence of rougher tongues. Posh, they were. Public school boys slumming it, he wouldn't wonder, going to school on Daddy's dime and drinking on it too. They were fools if he ever saw one and he had no time for them.

They took a table, casting disparaging glances around as they snickered amongst themselves. The boy who looked to be the ring leader held up a hand and demanded service imperiously. Rose left the woman she'd been helping with an eye roll and an apologetic smile and made her way to the newcomers. John's expression darkened. He did not like the looks they were giving her. He liked them even less when one of the boys made a remark and Rose stiffened. Her smile remained in place, but tighter, forced. He knew that expression, and he had a feeling that if she hadn't been at work the rude young man would have been on the receiving end of a slap. She turned away to get their drinks and John watched their eyes follow her back to the bar.

"Problems?" he asked as casually as he could.

She shook her head. "Nah, just a bit annoying." She gave him a smile. "Back in a mo.'" Her burden collected, she maneuvered back to the boys' table. John let his eyes wander across the crowd, satisfied that she could take care of herself. The sharp retort of a slap brought his attention back to the table. Rose was standing, hands planted on her hips, jaw set and cheeks flushed with anger. One of the boys—the leader, he remembered—pressed one hand to the side of his face. The other boys jumped to their feet, eyes flashing.

"Slag!" the leader spat. Rose raised her chin defiantly. The boys shifted to take a step forward and John was there. He drew himself up to his full height, which was considerable, and glared down at them. He placed a gentle hand on Rose's shoulder.

"All right?" he asked. "Are they giving you trouble, Rose?"

"No," she said coldly. "They were just leaving."

"Right then," he replied. "I'll just escort them to the door then." He stepped forward, grabbed the leader's sleeve, and yanked him to his feet.

"Get your hands off me!" the young man snapped.

"Get out," John replied, "while you can still walk." Menace dripped from his words. Fury pulsed within him, a feeling that seemed to come from somewhere distant, somewhere deep within him.

The boys glared at him, but they left quickly. After the door closed he turned to the girl. "Are you all right?" he asked gently. "Did they hurt you?"

She shook her head. "M fine, really." She glared at the door. "Thought they could cop a feel."

"Well, I think you showed them," he replied. "That was quite a smack."

That earned a smile. "My mum would be proud."

He shuddered in mock horror. "Remind me never to irritate your mum." She laughed and the tension melted away.

* * *

He was waiting for her outside the bar when her shift ended. She blinked. Usually she had to haul him out of the place before he ended up passing out on the bar. That night, however, he appeared to be almost sober—a feat, she knew, as he'd spend the last five hours surrounded by alcohol.

He took her hand almost absently as they walked. He hadn't done that before, not as John Smith, and it sent little shivers of excitement or worry over her skin. She couldn't tell which. Did it mean he was remembering something of the Doctor? Or was he doing it all by himself? It was confusing, she thought, to have to distinguish between the two. He looked like the Doctor and he sounded like the Doctor, but he wasn't. He was too warm, for one thing. The Doctor's hand had always been cool wrapped around her own, but his was human hot against her skin. They walked past his shop again, and she wondered if it would be a habit, this walking her home. She wasn't complaining, but he was unpredictable at best, and she didn't want to get her hopes up only to have them come crashing down. She'd had quite enough of that growing up, thank you very much. She needed it from him least of all.

He left her outside her building, as he had the night before. In a moment of boldness she pressed a quick kiss to his cheek before she retreated behind the solid wooden door. Rose leaned against the cool surface, her heart pounding and a faint blush coloring her cheeks. She'd never been that brave before, that reckless. Oh, the times she'd wanted too—but something in his eyes warned her off, the knowledge that he was alien, that he was in many ways unknowable, kept her from carrying through. John Smith, for all he was a story, was human. She sighed as she climbed the stairs to her flat. It was mad, her life, and she was mad too.  



	4. Chapter 4

He blinked. She kissed him. She _kissed_ him. She kissed _him_? His brain was working overtime, which for him was an impressive feat, considering how fast it usually worked. He had been hyper-aware of her as he walked her home. Every movement, every sound tingled across his nerves like electricity. Throwing those idiots out of the Big Bad Wolf sent adrenaline coursing through him, and when she pressed her lips to his cheek he wasn't sure if he wanted to pull her against him and kiss her properly or run for his life. Both seemed appropriate, but he had been so startled that he'd been unable to react at all. It was just his cheek, an irritated voice snapped inside his head. His logic, perhaps? Or was he just a little madder than he previously thought? It was just his cheek, and she did the same to Jack, Jack-who-wasn't-her-boyfriend. That was good, though, right? He wasn't looking to be her boyfriend; he was just making sure that those tossers didn't come back and try to get her alone. They were the worst kind of people, the kind who thought that their position in life allowed them to break rules without regard for consequences. And if they touched her there would be consequences—severe consequences.

* * *

_He was standing on a beach. Gravel crunched beneath his study black boots and an icy wind whipped around him. He did not feel it. The comforting weight of his leather jacket was all the protection from the elements that he needed. Jack walked on his left and his right hand was wrapped around another smaller, gloved hand. He glanced over and smiled at Rose. She was bundled up in a parka and a thick knitted cap. A matching scarf swathed her face and hung down reminiscent of one he had worn in a previous lifetime. The cold pinked her cheeks and the tip of her nose and her eyes were wide with wonder. Frozen waves rose in front of them—huge breakers stilled in an instant of turmoil. The sun shone brightly in the clear blue sky and reflected off the ice with blinding intensity. Reflections and refractions danced across the ice and turned it into a sea of diamond._

_It was not half as beautiful as she looked, standing on an alien world, her cheeks pink and her eyes wide and her smile outshining the sun. Jack was gone, wandered off somewhere. He told them, three rules: Don't wander off, Don't ask stupid questions, and do what he told them. They listened well enough, and then did what they wanted anyway. He wondered why he bothered making rules when his companions insisted on breaking them. He wondered why he bothered making rules when he only wanted to break them—to tilt her chin up and cover her lips with his own and show her that he had the moves—that he was more than able to_ dance _._

_His hands itched to touch her more fully than her parka would allow. He kept his left at his side and his right wrapped around hers. He promised he would keep her safe, not out loud, of course. He couldn't lie to her mother like that even if the woman was a bit of a harpy. She loved her daughter and wanted her safe. It was not an unreasonable request, and in the silence of his soul he'd agreed, he'd vowed to protect her, even if it meant protecting her from himself. He was a dangerous man. Death and destruction followed him like his own shadow, and he would not let it touch her._

_He was pulled from his thoughts by her arm around him and the press of her parka-covered body against his own. "Thanks," she whispered as he returned the hug. "It's gorgeous." He held her gently, not too close so she wouldn't feel his hearts pounding in his chest. So are you, he wanted to say, but he didn't. A coward every time._

* * *

She showed up at the shop as the other mechanics were leaving for their lunch break. He wasn't much for lunch—most of the others went down to the pub for a bite and a chat, or to catch a bit of a match. They asked too many questions that he wasn't going to answer. His silence made them uncomfortable and their chatter irritated him, so he stayed in the shop. Sometimes he ate, sometimes he didn't. It was one of those tedious necessities, like sleep, that he often forgot. Ana used to tease him about it, his distaste for the mechanics of living.

 _Humans need sleep, John._ How her eyes used to sparkle.

 _I'll sleep when I'm dead_. He was wrong. He slept while she died.

He shook his head to clear out the ghosts. Rose was here and Ana was not. "Checking up on the car?" he asked with an eyebrow raised.

She shook her head and held up a paper sack. "Brought lunch." She smiled at him then, almost shyly, more hesitant than he'd seen her before. "Humans need to eat."

Lunch was chips and a couple sandwiches from the pub. She pulled out two bottles of soda and set them on the ground. They were sitting in the shop, the lobby being too open for either of their tastes. She handed him one wrapped sandwich and he blinked as he peeled away the paper. How did she know what he liked? They never talked about sandwiches (and why would they—far too domestic). It was one more strange thing about her, one more note he added to the mental list of things that he knew about Rose Tyler. She took the orange soda and left the cola for him—one more item she knew without explanation. He filed it away with the sandwich bit. They ate in silence for a while, but it was companionable, not strained.

"You were right," he said after he finished his sandwich and started on the accompanying chips. She blinked as if she didn't hear that often. Interesting. "About the car," he clarified. She smiled then the way people do when they catch you in an assumption. "Meant to ask you last night," he went on. "Where did you learn about cars?"

Rose leaned back against the cool cement of the wall. "Dated a mechanic for a few years," she replied. "You pick things up, even if you don't want to." A wry smile flitted across her face.

"Past tense?" Did he really just ask that out loud? What happened to scaring her away? What happened to keeping his distance?

She blinked at him again. "What?"

"Dated," he replied. In for a penny, in for a pound. Another confusing human idiom, at least, confusing to anyone who was unfamiliar with British currency.

"Oh. Yeah." She was confused again. Really, where did she get off being confused? She was the one sending all sorts of mixed signals his way. "I had this chance to go traveling," she continued. "Once in a lifetime opportunity." She dropped her crumpled sandwich wrapper into the empty paper bag and pulled her knees up under her chin. She wrapped her arms around her legs and clutched them to her chest. "He wanted to stay still, and I just…I couldn't."

He knew that feeling, knew it like the callouses on his hands and the creases in his jacket. He hated being still, couldn't stand being in one place for any longer than he absolutely had to. Money brought him to a halt, drove him to settle down until he could earn enough to fund his wandering. He had friends he could turn to, people from his past. The Brigadier would take him in, but he didn't need any reminder of his days as a soldier. Sarah Jane was around somewhere, but she didn't need and old flame intruding on her life again. She had gone; she moved on. Everyone seemed to move on, but him, even though he never stopped moving. It was like he was running in place.

"So what's a London girl like you doing here?" he asked her in an effort to distract himself from his thoughts.

She sighed. "Waiting. Got a friend we travel with—me and Jack—but he was held up. He's sort of our designated driver, 's his ship n'all, so we're stuck." She laid her head on top of her knees and stared at the street beyond the open door of the garage. "I'm not good at this," she said finally, frustration sharpening her voice. "I'm not good at waiting any more. 'Sall I did for the first nineteen years of my life, but then he came along." Her face softened and her yes became distant and John knew that she was lost in a memory. "An' it was _fantastic_. He showed me things that I never would have seen in London, not in a thousand million years. We met all sorts of people, Jack included, and we did mad, brilliant things. But then he went and got himself caught, and we're left sittin' here waiting."

He empathized. "Me too." It was his turn to lean back as she shifted her eyes to focus on him. "I've been a traveler all my life. Never could stand to sit still." He gestured expansively to the world beyond the garage. "There's so much _out_ there. Who wouldn't want to see it?"

"Why'd you stop?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Money. Can't travel without it."

She laughed. "I wish my friend believed that!" He looked at her blankly. "He's not very good with domestics—like money—either," she clarified. "Every time we get chips, and I try to get them in every port, I pay."

John blinked. "So you travel around with two blokes and what, look after them?"

"Someone's got to," she said with a shrug. "Jack was with the Agency for too long—doesn't think more than a week in advance, and the Doctor…" her voice trailed off and the faraway look reasserted itself. "He doesn't think about it at all. Too focused on his ship." She sighed. "It's the only female he's remotely interested in," she continued dryly.

"He's a doctor, your friend?" The one that makes you smile, the one that steals your thoughts away. John felt absurdly like he was competing, even though they were alone. You can't win when you fight with a memory. People don't remember the hardships, the fights, the little annoyances that drove them mad. They remember the good times, the happiness, the moments they would kill to have back. Or at least, he did.

"Yeah," she replied. "Not that kind of doctor, though." Rose paused, frowning. "Come to think of it, I'm not sure what kind of doctor he is. Just calls himself that, like Jack's 'the Captain.'"

"But it's the Doctor's ship," John asserted, confused.

Rose laughed. "Yeah. He was a Captain when we found him."

"What about his ship?" Or was it a military rank? Did it have to do with the Agency? That name screamed covert ops or paramilitary. Was he some kind of terrorist? Color him crazy, but he didn't get that vibe off of the man. He was shady all right, but not in a bloody kind of way, not like a traitor.

"It blew up," she replied matter-of-factly. "So we asked him to come with us. Well," she amended, "I asked and the Doctor sort of let him."

"It blew up," he repeated. "You do lead an interesting life."

"He likes to blow things up, the Doctor does," she said with a grin. "He blew my job up." Rose relaxed a bit and straightened her legs out, resting her back against the cement wall. "It was lovely," she continued dreamily. "God, I hated that place."

John raised an eyebrow. "So he's an arsonist?"

She shook her head emphatically. "He only does it when he has to. Jack's ship was sort of an accident, but there were these—people, and they were going to use the building to hurt the city, so he blew it up. It was after-hours. There was no one there besides me." She smiled. "He saved my life."

It was damned difficult to compete with that. Not, he asserted, that he was competing. He wasn't interested in her like that; he just wanted to make sure that she was safe. Running around with dangerous blokes was questionable for a woman of any age, but she was young and naive. She didn't need anyone taking advantage of her.

"An' now you're here," John said after the pause stretched out, bordering on uncomfortable.

"Five more months and then we're off," she replied too quickly to have made calculations. She kept a mental countdown going. He did the same. He was surprised to note that theirs were running at the same pace.

"Why not wait in London?" he asked, voicing a question that had been bouncing about in his mind. "You must have family—friends. Sure they'd love a visit."

Rose grimaced. "Just my mum and Mickey—the mechanic." He was suddenly glad that she was here and not in London. She worried her bottom lip with her teeth. "Thought about it. Mum doesn't like me traveling—thinks it's 'inappropriate' for me to knock about with a couple of older men." She rolled her eyes. "Thinks it's giving me 'airs and graces.'" She repeated the words like they were a common complaint. "If I went home, I'd have to listen to that for five months, and it's more than enough to drive me barking. Really, though…it's like, like I don't fit there anymore." Her voice was soft, hesitant. He waited patiently for her to work it out, well, maybe not patiently, but he kept silent. "I've seen beautiful things and terrible things—things that'll give me nightmares until I die and things that make me want to cry they're so wonderful. An' all of that—it made me different. I'm not Rose Tyler, shopgirl anymore. But them," she shrugged. "They stayed the same and now—now it's wrong. 'Slike I'm a stranger in my own home. I make mum nervous." She laughed. "Imagine that. My mum and she's nervous around me. No. I'm more comfortable in a bar fulla strangers than I am in the flat I grew up in." She turned her wide, open eyes on him and he felt like she could see into his soul. "Does that make me a bad person?"

She was asking _him_ this? A man she hardly knew, who by his own confession never stayed in any one place for long at all? A man who had pinned her up against the wall and frightened her in a futile effort to scare her off? "No," he replied. What else could he say? "People change. 'Scalled growing up, and everyone leaves home in the end." He covered her hand with his own in an attempt to reassure. "Your mum isn't cut out for your life, but it's not hers. It's yours and you are, and that's fantastic."

She smiled at him then like he was so impressive, like he was _worth_ something, and warmth seemed to radiate from within him, to reach into the cold, hard places where hurt and anger festered and sooth them away. She moved through his life with the force of a hurricane. She was a beautiful disaster waiting to happen, and he wouldn't have it any other way. He was a goner, but oh, what a way to go.  



	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem at the beginning is 'Blighters' by Sigfried Sassoon.

_The House is crammed: tier beyond tier they grin  
And cackle at the Show, while prancing ranks  
Of harlots shrill the chorus, drunk with din;_  
' _We're sure the Kaiser loves our dear old Tanks!'_

_I'd like to see a Tank come down the stalls,_  
Lurching to rag-time tunes, or 'Home, sweet Home',  
And there'd be no more jokes in Music-halls  
To mock the riddled corpses round Bapaume. 

The lunch-time meeting became something of a habit for the two of them. Rose would show up at the shop just as the other mechanics left, bearing food of some sort—sandwiches and chips, pizza, curry from the little place on the corner—and they would eat and talk. He found that he liked talking with her. She was quick and clever, far cleverer than she believed herself to be. What she lacked in education she more than made up for in curiosity and persistence. Most important, she asked good questions and wasn't afraid to challenge him when she thought he was wrong. He found himself opening up to her, this slip of a girl with far too many stories behind her eyes that he didn't know. The unimportant things about herself he discovered easily. She was twenty-one and a bit, hailed from the Powell Estate in London, had an apparently terrible mum called Jackie and a recently-ex boyfriend named Mickey. She talked freely about the first nineteen years of her life and even about Jack, but never about their 'friend.' All she would say is that they travelled together and he was going to meet them in Oxford. It was his ship and he was the 'designated driver.' He blew up Jack's ship and her job and somehow that made him even more attractive.

It was confirmed. She was a nutter.

Even though he knew this, knew that she had to be crazy to stay with a man who put her in as much danger as he would bet this 'friend' did, she seemed to be more grounded than almost anyone he'd met. And hey, at least she wasn't boring. Genius, him, and he could read people in a glance, could know them in a heartsbeat. Heartbeat. No idea why he was thinking a plural on that. But anyway, he knew people, and very little surprised him. She managed without much trouble, though. She wasn't what he thought whenever he stopped to form an opinion, to predict how she would react. She startled and sometimes unsettled him, but mostly he was in awe of her. She was so much _more_ than she appeared, so much more than most people bothered to see.

Even he forgot sometimes, the depths she had, and then she reminded him. It was lunch-time and they were in the shop eating chips when she quoted a poem he knew well. He stared at her.

"What?" she asked, blinking at his surprise. Siegfried Sassoon wasn't like T.S. Eliot, wasn't so popular that most people knew at least one snippet ( _This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper_ ). Most people he met never heard of the man, of course, that was probably his first mistake—assuming she was most people. Beyond that, though, he was a war poet. It was disconcerting, hearing the words of a soldier in the mouth of a girl, words that fit as if they belonged.

"Blighters" had always been one of his favorite poems. It was an elegant way to tell someone to shut the fuck up about something they could not comprehend. He'd _been_ in war. He'd seen its devastation in a way that only someone who had walked in the dust could. The way she said it, the tone of her voice and the tightness of her lips betrayed a knowledge that he never thought she would have. She had walked in the dust. And now she was looking at him like he'd dribbled on his shirt.

"Don't seem one for poetry, you." Ah yes, an insult would cover up his shock. He thought she would bristle, but she didn't. Instead she went still, quiet in the way that unwanted memories impose on a body in motion, perpetual motion. She was never still. Even sitting she tapped her hand or jiggled her leg or drew patterns in the dirt.

"My friend," she said by way of explanation. "He told it to me. Read a whole book of the guy's stuff." Her eyes were far away. "He was in a war." And he showed her so that she would understand, so that he would feel less alone? It's coming back home that's the hardest, standing in the middle of a supermarket with civilians going on their merry way when all around them people are fighting and dying—when there's a war raging underneath. Standing in the middle of a crowd of people, and all alone in your head because no one understands, no one can understand who wasn't there.

Time to change the subject. He didn't want to think about bombs and promises and things that used to be people but are now so much meat ( _it's bad to think of war, / When thoughts you've gagged all day come back to scare you; / And it's been proved that soldiers don't go mad / Unless they lose control of ugly thoughts / That drive them out to jabber among the trees_ ). And he doesn't want her thinking about the man who is less than a shadow and more than a wall between them.

* * *

It was Friday and he was at the Big Bad Wolf. Joan and Jack were behind the bar acting suspiciously professional. He felt like he should warn the woman, should let her know that whatever she had with the flashy American came with an expiration date. In three months and eighteen days he would be gone, traveling with Rose and their nameless friend.

 _Rose_. In three months and eighteen days she would be out of his life, probably for ever. The realization stung more than he thought it should. He hadn't even kissed her properly, for crying out loud. The most they'd done was a light brush on the cheek when he walked her home, but he saw her with startling regularity. The few times she'd begged off their lunch-meetings (twice to see Jack and once to see Jenny) left him irritable for the rest of the day. She had an effect on him that was completely disproportionate to the length of time he'd known her. But it seemed right that he would miss her, would feel like he'd forgotten something important if she wasn't there. It felt right, the flare of jealousy that stirred when a boy closer to her age flashed a smile and stood closer than strictly necessary.

He loved her. He'd had an inkling after she kissed him, when they were sitting the shop and she'd looked at him with those wide brown eyes and asked him— _him_ , the man that people called a 'sour bastard,' even people who liked him—for reassurance. There were boatloads of young men who'd have been happy to do the honors, but she'd chosen him. Now, however, the knowledge hit him like a freight train. He loved her. He'd known her for less than two months, but it felt like so much longer. It felt like he'd been drifting, waiting, and now whatever he'd been looking for was found.

* * *

He was so startled that he didn't notice when Rose left the stage, her set complete for the night. He also didn't notice as she made her way through the small crowd, stopping occasionally to chat with a regular or accept a compliment gracefully. He did, however, notice when she touched his arm. And by notice, one means he jumped about a foot in the air.

She laughed when he grumbled about teenage pranks and the dangers of sneaking up on a soldier. The hug she gave him in apology more than made up for the startle, he thought, but then she turned away and beckoned to one of the young men sitting at a nearby table. His mood soured somewhat. They boy had a familiar face, one he recognized from other weekends at the Big Bad Wolf.

"John, I'd like you to meet Tim Latimer. Tim, this is John Smith," she introduced them. The boy—Tim, shook his hand. Not a bad handshake, even if he did look more than a little nervous. Good. He should be. Now that he finally realized what he felt, and how strongly, he wasn't going to let some wet-eared whelp steal her away from him. "Tim lives in the flat beneath me," Rose continued, "and he's going to Oxford for Uni." She flashed him a tongue-touched smile. "He's clever, brilliant really."

Tim had the decency to look uncomfortable. "M not, really," he protested. "But Rose mentioned that you're fond of Sassoon and Owen, and I'm a bit of a fan myself." The conversation turned to poetry then and he found that the lad was quite bright, and surprisingly articulate. Perhaps he wasn't quite as bad as John had believed him to be.

* * *

Tim Latimer knew things. Well, most people know things, but he was different. He _knew_ things. Impossible things, things he couldn't in a million years know—and somehow did. When his roommate's uncle was in a car crash he'd known before the family had. When his sister was pregnant he'd known before she'd worked up the courage to tell their parents and he'd known almost to the second when she lost the baby. He couldn't explain it, and after a while he stopped trying. It was a feeling he got sometimes, like an itch in his brain. It was nothing definite, no images or voices or anything like that, just a feeling.

He knew, when he shook John Smith's hand, that he was a very dangerous man. He also knew he was more than he seemed. He was brilliant, and what a man with a mind like his was doing fixing cars was the question of the day. Tim knew that he could have been a professor. He was certainly enthusiastic about poetry. A few questions and he was demonstrating different meters and detailing the different relationships between Sassoon and Owen and half a dozen other poets of the Great War.

He knew that the man was incredibly fond of Rose, and that she seemed to return his affections. She watched them debate with an amused smile on her face. Smith favored Sassoon but Tim enjoyed Pound and Eliot and each seemed bent on convincing the other of their idol's supremacy. Rose touched Smith's shoulder and murmured in his ear before she disappeared. Tim shot him a questioning look.

"Left her things backstage," he replied shortly. "Now, where were we?" Of course he hadn't really forgotten. Brilliant, him, but the boy was decent conversation and what could possibly happen between the bar and the stage?

* * *

Apparently, quite a bit. Rose hummed to herself as she wove through the crowd. It was a good night. The Doctor—John—god it was hard keeping them sorted in her head. He was so—so himself, even as a human. He was still prickly and giddy and not half jealous when anyone else looked at her. Oh, she'd caught the way he'd tensed when she introduced Tim, but the way they got on afterwards made up for it. She wondered, not for the first time and certainly not for the last, why he wouldn't let more people see him the way he was around her. He was always winding Mickey up and insulting her mum. They'd never met the real him, the one who'd come for her not matter where she was, who beat her at Scrabble every time and picked out planets he knew she'd love. He was gruff and hard and sharp on the outside and it was pity that was all that most people ever saw.

She was lost in thought as she navigated the cramped area behind the small stage, so oblivious that she almost missed the smoke curling from the corner of the space. Then the acrid vapor crawled down her throat and she coughed roughly. A flash and a sharp crack split the air and then flames licked the wall of the bar. A shrill ringing burst out as the fire alarms alerted the others. She could hear shouts and curses and the scrape of tables and chairs against the wooden floor. Her bag was back here—her bag and the watch and the TARDIS key that she usually kept on a chain around her neck.

The watch that wasn't a watch—the small, silver locket that held the everything that was the Doctor was in danger. She sent a silent apology to the TARDIS and ripped a piece off of her dress. She clutched the fabric to her mouth in an effort to stave off smoke inhalation and forged onward. She had to find it, she just had to. He'd trusted her, put his life in her hands, and she was never going to let him down.

* * *

Tim Latimer knew things, and one of the many things he knew was that if there was trouble around Rose Tyler would be there. When the fire alarms went off he bolted for the stage. John Smith tried to stop him, but he was too fast and the other man was caught helping Joan and Jack herd the patrons out into the chill of the night.

Predictably, he found Rose stumbling around in the smoke-choked cubby behind the curtain. He grabbed her arm but she yanked away from him. "Got to find it!" she gasped. "The watch!"

"Rose!" he shouted before he dissolved into a fit of coughing. "Got to go, now!" He pushed her away, towards the door. She fought him but he had the advantage of height over her. He managed to get her out into the main bar and paused. Something was—calling him. A voice seemed to be coming from a glint of silver at his feet. He reached down as she finally admitted defeat and staggered into the street. His fingers closed around the cold metal case of an old-fashioned pocket watch.

 _Keep me hidden_ , the watch said. _Keep me safe_.

Tim blinked. Inanimate objects had never spoken to him before. The shock distracted him for a moment, until the smoke ripped another choking cough from his lungs and he threw his arm over his mouth as he followed Rose out into the clean air beyond the Big Bad Wolf's doors.  
  



	6. Chapter 6

Panic roiled within John Smith, hot and sharp and strong. Rose. Where was Rose? People milled about in the street, pushing him back from the flames that licked up the walls of the Big Bad Wolf. He could feel the heat on his face from where he stood yards away. A fire engine pulled up in front of them and he tried to reach them, to tell them that there was someone still inside. Then the doors burst open and she staggered out into the night, a bit of fabric pressed over her nose and mouth. He was next to her in a heartsbeat. Heartbeat. Why did he keep doing that, inserting a plural in what was clearly singular? He had no time for the stray thought that wound around his brain. He wrapped his arm around her waist, steadying her as he led her back away from the fire. She leaned on him heavily and let the cloth fall from her face.

"Rose?" he asked, fear making his voice sharp. "Rose, what's wrong?"

She coughed, loud and wracking and did not reply. She was pale under the smudges of soot that marked her face, he noticed. Very pale. She coughed again and her fingers tightened in his jacket. "Rose?" he asked again. Then her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed against him. "Rose!" he yelled and shook her slightly. No response. He looked around frantically until he found Jack's face in the crowd. The other man worked his way over, his jaw set and his eyes questioning. "Call an ambulance!" John barked. "Rose is hurt!"

* * *

For a fraction of a second Captain Jack Harkness hesitated. Rose was hurt, and the Doctor had an infirmary with equipment that was thousands of years more advanced than whatever hospital they could take her to in the twenty-first century. To him contemporary medicine was barbaric. Most of the practices that were commonplace in her time had been replaced in his with more efficient, less invasive measures. Colonoscopies, for example, were a thing of the past. Simply swallow a packet of nanorobots and they would provide the basis for a 3D, interactive trip through your digestive system. None of this 'shove a camera up your ass' treatment.

He looked her over quickly—no outward sign of injury. It was something internal. That decided it. He could do basic first aid, work the dermal regenerator and give painkillers, but only the Doctor knew how to work the more complex machinery. If she was bleeding internally, for example, he'd be completely helpless. It would be better to let the other doctors (he had to consciously stop from calling them 'butchers' in the silence of his mind) help her, even if they were woefully backwards. And anyway, once the Doctor was back he could fix any lingering problems that might arise—as long as Rose was there to meet him.

If she died on his watch—and he knew that the Doctor expected him to keep an eye on Rose. She was, after all, rather jeopardy friendly. If she died and he was there he didn't want to think about what the Doctor would do to him. At his worst, he would do nothing at all, besides leave him somewhere in the fifty-first century and let him remember how he failed for the rest of his admittedly long life. Jack _knew_ with a certainty that was absolute the bond that existed between the Time Lord and the Human. It was the kind of connection about which people wrote songs and composed epics. He would not be the one to cut it short.

He nodded and pulled out the cell phone that Rose had insisted he use for the duration of their stay.

When the ambulance arrived the paramedics took her from John. "You her father?" one of them asked.

He shook his head. "Her friend." He glanced at Jack, a question in his eyes.

"Go ahead," the other man said. "I'll follow in the car."

He nodded and climbed into the ambulance.

* * *

_She was warm. Warm and safe. She didn't really understand how she knew this, but she did. A familiar voice, warm and rough, wiggled into the comforting dark that dulled her senses. There were words, she knew there were words, but they washed over her like waves on the beach and left behind a sense of deep content. She knew that voice, knew it like she knew her own heartbeat. If it was there, then she was safe. Someone gripped her hand—callused skin caught against her softer palm. It too was familiar. It too was safe. She sighed, and fell further into the blackness. He would be there when she woke._

* * *

_A voice intruded on her dreams. She knew the voice, knew the man who was speaking—reading—to her. It was strange, though. The persistent hum of the TARDIS was missing. Had she fallen asleep while they were out? Maybe they were in jail again, and the Doctor had produced whatever book he was reading aloud from his dimensionally transcendent pockets. Needed to get some of those, she did. He was always pulling useful bits and bobs out of them. And if she had her own she wouldn't have to endure the huffing and puffing that always accompanied her request for him to hold something she purchased. He hated shopping—too domestic—but he loved the look on her face when they stopped at a marketplace. She knew he watched her. He wasn't exactly subtle about it. Was that why he kept her around, so that a little of her wonder would rub off on him?_

_She knew why she stayed. Part of it was the lifestyle—a girl could get used to visiting a different planet or time every day. Part of it was the company—she hadn't missed the jealous looks she'd gotten when people saw her with two very attractive men, but the largest part was him. He might be a Time Lord and nine hundred years old and pretty impressive when he wanted to be, but he needed someone to hold his hand. He needed someone to remind him that the universe wasn't just pain and death and righting wrongs. It was joy and laughter and quiet moments with friends. She'd been joking when she told John that she looked after Jack and the Doctor, but it wasn't really a joke, it was—oh god._

John _._

 _And she remembered—the fire, the watch, Tim pulling her away, struggling to get back but finally giving up. The_ Watch _! The Watch-that-wasn't-a-watch! The watch that was everything that made up the man—alien—she loved (because in the silence of her mind she could say it, even if she never ever voiced the words aloud)._

* * *

She opened her eyes slowly and blinding brightness filled her field of vision. She grumbled and shaded her face with an arm. The back of her hand itched and stung a bit, and she realized that there was a needle pressed into her skin, held in place by a strip of clear tape. She frowned. Wouldn't she have remembered needles? The Doctor—John, she corrected—had stopped reading and after a moment the light dimmed significantly.

"Rose?" he asked quietly.

She let her arm fall back beside her and smiled at him. The movement of her lips irritated the thin tubing that rested against her nose, sending puffs of what had to be oxygen into her nostrils. "Hello."

His answering smile was like the sun coming up. "Hello," he replied, still quietly.

She glanced around, but lying flat on her back severely restricted her field of vision. "Where?" she asked, and even that made her tired. She wanted to rail against the deep weariness that seemed to settle into her very bones.

"Hospital," he responded. One hand still held the book, but the other stroked her arm softly. She wondered if he even realized he was doing it, but she made no move to react. If she did he would stop and it felt lovely. "Carbon monoxide poisoning," he went on, "from the smoke and the fire. Tim pulled you out and got you outside." He fixed her with his electric eyes and she could _feel_ the worry rolling off of him in waves—worry and concern and desperate happiness that she was alive and awake and _right here_. "Had us worried for a bit there, you did." His voice was different, still soft, but rougher. His hand traveled up her arm to her shoulder, slid lightly over her neck and cupped her cheek. He was looking at her with such fierce intent that she almost forgot to breathe.

A nurse knocked on the door sharply before entering and the spell was broken. His hand dropped and he pulled back and she missed the rough skin against her cheek, the warmth of his palm and the safety it implied. "Visiting hours are over, Mr. Smith," she informed him brusquely. "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

Rose frowned, but he squeezed her hand gently. "I'll be back tomorrow after work," he told her. "Jack'll keep you company until then."

He paused at the door and flashed a quick grin back at her. "Behave yourself," he admonished. She stuck out her tongue. He laughed, and then he was gone, out the door and down the hall.

* * *

He hated hospitals. They were cold and sterile and she didn't belong there. She was warm and so full of life. The force of her personality was almost overwhelming, but unconscious she looked small, fragile. She looked like a child on that hospital bed with an IV dripping into her veins and oxygen pumping into her lungs. It was an image that he wanted to forget, but he didn't think he could. She seemed to take her location in stride—in fact, she seemed to be more upset by his leaving than her current condition. It warmed him to know that she wanted him close, but at the same time it sent a shiver down his spine. How familiar was she with the inside of a hospital? He knew that her travels with Jack and her doctor friend were dangerous, but _how_ dangerous? How often had she almost died with them? He pushed the thoughts down as he made his way out into the chilly evening air. She was alive, and that was good.

* * *

When he returned to the hospital the next day she was gone.

"What do you mean, gone?" he asked the nurse, his face pale. A million possible alternatives barreled through his mind, most of them resulting in a still form beneath a white sheet, a cold body on a morgue table. It was an image that turned his blood to ice.

She blinked. "Rose Tyler discharged herself yesterday, sir. It was against the doctor's advice, but she insisted."

Of all the stupid—he shook his head. Of course it would be her. "Thank you," he told the helpful nurse with perhaps a bit more force than he wanted. Then he turned on his heel and went to find her.

He passed Tim on the way to Rose's flat and the young man held the door for him. John went to thank him, but the boy flinched away, his eyes wide with fear. John knew that his expression was bleak—it had to be with the swirling mass of rage and fear and concern that was a whirlstorm within him—but it wasn't _that_ bleak. He catalogued the moment away to be dealt with at a later time.

* * *

The door was unlocked and he was, frankly, too angry to be bothered with polite niceties like knocking or keeping his voice below 'shouting.' He barreled in to the little flat and found her sitting on the couch with a mug of tea. She did not look surprised in the least to see him.

"What do you think you're doing?" he barked.

She looked around. "I'm having tea. Would you like some?"

"What are you doing _here_?" he clarified, his voice dropping to a growl.

She tucked an errant lock of hair behind her ear and blew on the steaming mug. "Don't like hospitals," she said quietly. "An' I can breathe just fine, thanks. An' the doctor said that as long as I take it easy I'll be right as rain."

"He also said that leaving was against his advice," John reminded her. "He's a professional, Rose. He went to school for _years_ —you should try listening to him!"

"What are you, my mum?" she snapped. She was tired and achy and the last thing she needed was him yelling at her.

"No," he snapped back, "but I'm the one who'd have to call her and tell her that her daughter got herself killed!" That declaration seemed to drain the anger out of him, and he was left feeling old and tired. "Did you think of that, Rose?"

"Jack would," she began, but he cut her off.

"D'you see him volunteering that kind of information? No. It would have been me, and I've had enough of telling parents that their children have died to last me several lifetimes, thanks." He sat down next to her and she scooted over, making room. For a long moment they simply sat, not quite touching, until he covered her hand on her leg with his own. "Tim told me that you didn't want to go," he said quietly. "He had to pull you out, to force you away." She remained silent. "What was it, Rose? What did you have in that bag that was worth risking your life?"

She looked at him then, her eyes wide and dark. "A watch."

And just like that the anger was back. "What?" He couldn't have heard her right. "A _watch_?" His voice climbed several decibels. "You almost died over a watch? Of all the bloody, _stupid_ things to die for you picked a watch?"

Her jaw tensed and she met his anger with her own. "It's not a watch! It looks like one, but it's not and my friend gave it to me to look after and I'll be damned if I let him down!"

"And what if you died?" he asked, eyes frozen in fury. "What if your doctor friend came back and the watch, or whatever it was, was perfectly safe and you were dead? What then, Rose Tyler? Oh, but what's one more person I have to inform of your death? Just heap them on; it can't be too hard after your mum's done." He glared at her and she found herself unable to look away. Beneath the anger was pain, so much pain, and fear. "I've seen what death does to families, Rose, and it's not pretty. Parents shouldn't have to bury their children. We're used to the idea that someone we love will have to bury us, but it shouldn't be the other way around. No one should have to go through that." He knew that his words got through the haze of her anger, could tell by the flash of guilt in her eyes, the slight flicker towards the table where a picture of her mother and father sat. "Would it be worth that?" he continued. Time to ram the point home. "Would that watch be worth the pain your death would cause your mother and your friends?"

There were tears in her eyes but they did not fall. Her face was calm, composed, and her voice was steady when she answered him. "Yes," she said. He opened his mouth to interrupt but she pressed a finger to his lips and he found himself unable to speak. "It's not a watch, and it's incredibly important." She bit her lip and studied his face. He could see her weighing her options, on the verge of imparting some bit of information that would explain her behavior. She seemed to come to a decision and let her hand fall. "Have you heard of UNIT?"

He nodded. Oh, he'd heard chapter and verse about them, but not since his army days. His superiors hated them, called them snobs and crazies and all sorts of names. They had jurisdiction over everything, apparently, and when they rolled in everyone else rolled out.

"He works for UNIT sometimes, my friend," she went on slowly. "And the watch, it's a UNIT thing. They gave it to him to protect, but he couldn't take it where he was going. It would have been too dangerous, so he left it with me. He trusted me with more than his life, and I have to find it. I have to get it back. In the wrong hands," her voice trailed off and her eyes were far away. "In the wrong hands it could do horrible things." She looked at him then, small and strong and solemn. "It would mean war, war across the whole world."

It was unfair, he thought as he watched her. She was so young, too young for this sort of weight to be put on her shoulders. It was far too much for any one person to bear, and how long had she been holding the fate of the world in her hands? She wasn't an Atlas, a titan born to carry the world on her back. She was just a child.

No. She was a woman. For all her youth she had seen war. She'd seen pain and destruction and she managed to rise above it. He'd put her on a pedestal, decided she was a beacon of light and ignored that like everyone, she had her shadows. It was her ability to overcome the darkness, to push it back with the strength of her determination and compassion that made her beautiful. She shone, and not from lack of sorrow, but in defiance of it.

"I'm sorry," she said after a while, her voice small and the tears she wouldn't shed plain in her voice. "I—I didn't think about you or mum or Jack, I just, I had to act." Please understand, her eyes begged him. Please don't leave. Please don't be angry.

He knew that he could not refuse her anything, least of all his forgiveness. He knew about hard choices. Being a soldier, especially in a position of command, was full of them. He just never expected _her_ to know about them. She shifted and her hair fell forward, obscuring her face. He reached without thinking and tucked it back behind her ear. She looked at him, eyes wide and startled. His hand moved from the delicate shell of her ear to the apple of her cheek and he stroked his thumb across it, rough calluses catching on her softer skin. Her lips parted and a slow flush crept up her neck. He was studying her far too intently, he knew. Really, he should drop his hand and move back, but the moment was barreling forward like a freight train and he was only along for the ride. Her gravity was pulling him closer, had been pulling him in since he woke up in her bed and heard her singing in the kitchen.

Her eyes closed as he dipped his face down and pressed his lips against hers.  



	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bits of poetry are from, in order, "Do not go gentle into that good night," by Dylan Thomas, "The Hollow Men," by T.S. Eliot, and "Dulce et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Own. (It translates into 'It is sweet and proper to die for the fatherland.' )

His lips were soft and warm and slightly chapped and his hand on her cheek kept her anchored to the moment. Her hands lay uselessly in her lap, not because she didn't want to respond, but because she had far too many things she wanted to do: she wanted to grab the lapels of his jacket and haul herself against his chest; she wanted to cup the back of his head and scratch his scalp with her fingernails; she wanted to thread her fingers through his and let him know that _god did she want this_. At the same time, she didn't want to frighten him off. For all his impressive Time Lord-iness he was rubbish at relationships. Too domestic for him, she wouldn't wonder. Too human.

But he was human now and he was kissing her. It was gentle and relatively chaste and lasted decidedly not long enough. He rested his forehead against hers and closed his eyes, his thumb still stroking her cheek absently. She tried to study his face, to get a feel for what he was thinking, but only succeeded in crossing her eyes and giving herself the beginning of a headache.

"Rose Tyler," he said quietly and something inside her clenched. He sounded just like the Doctor—had the same inflection, the exact same way of rolling her name in his mouth. He managed to fit so much _meaning_ into two words. It shouldn't be possible but it was. She held her breath in anticipation of what would follow. "Any chance I could get some tea? Fancy a cuppa."

Yes, he was exactly like the Doctor. One minute he was all serious intensity and the next he was bounding away, reasserting the distance, snapping the roles back into place. It was so _frustrating_ knowing that the walls between them were permeable, but only at his desire. He had the control in their relationship, always, and it was starting to drive her around the bend. She pulled away from him and pushed herself off the couch before she did something rash, like slap him clear into next week or grab his ears and snog him into submission. It was times like these when she really wanted to ring Shareen, but what would she say? Oh hi, I've been traveling around the Universe with this nine-hundred year-old alien whom I have fallen in love with and would like to shag senseless, but he won't even kiss me properly. Advice? It sounded ridiculous in her head, never mind what it would sound like out loud. She'd be sectioned if she told anyone, even her mum.

* * *

He watched her withdraw with a sensation approaching physical pain. He noted the tightening of her lips and the downward slant of her eyebrows. She was irritated and frustrated, apparently with him. He could live with that. She walked to the kitchen and he sat back on the couch and closed his eyes. He was far too susceptible to her presence. She was here and he'd been afraid, so very afraid that he'd lost her and he'd let his guard down.

She was not for him.

Oh, but he ached to hold her, to pull her against him and feel the heat of her skin through her thin pajamas. He'd been fighting thoughts of her since the moment he saw her on stage at the Big Bad Wolf, singing her heart out. She pushed back the darkness, reminded him that maybe, just maybe, there was something to life besides the slow trudge towards death.

Who was he kidding? He needed a cold shower and a reality check, and he needed them now. She was not for him.

* * *

Tim Latimer sat on his bed cross-legged, the watch-that-wasn't-a-watch cupped in his hands. He could hear the whispering still, always the same: _keep me hidden. Keep me safe_. He contemplated the distinct possibility that he was going crazy, but discarded it almost immediately. Nothing else had changed—he'd had no other symptoms besides a belief that a watch could talk, and not just any watch—this watch in particular.

Hesitantly he brushed his fingers across the catch at the top and the silver fob watch popped open. Golden light pooled within, undulating like fire in space.

_There were voices in his head, voices and faces. Nine men—old and young and short and tall and behind them, behind the faces was the force of a millennia and power like a sleeping lion, like a coiled spring, like the first stirrings of a tsunami in the ocean deeps. There was old joy and bright, recent pain and rage—rage that filled him completely and burned with the force of a supernova._

_There was fire and hate and death and_ rage _and they screamed, they all screamed and then they stopped and the silence was worse. It crawled into his brain and ripped into his mind and it was empty, empty, empty. (_ Rage, rage against the dying of the light _and_ This is the way the world ends _/_ not with a bang but a whimper _and_ The old lie; Dulce et Decorum est / Pro patria mori _and what happens when you live?)_

 _He saw suns expanding, dying, being born. Beneath his feet the world was spinning through space at a thousand miles an hour, hurtling around the sun at sixty-seven thousand miles an hour and_ he could feel it _. He could see_ Time _as it flowed around people and objects, could see the future and the past, what is and what could be. A million possibilities unfolded in his mind and behind all of them was boundless knowledge and inhuman patience. He knew the stars and planets, numbered and named them. He was there when they spun themselves out of dust and rocks and gas and he was there when they returned to their basic elements. It was beautiful and terrible and far, far too much for any human being to handle._

His hand convulsed and the lid of the not-watch snapped shut. He stared at the shiny silver surface, taking in the engraved design that was not a design, but words: ancient words with a power that sent shivers down his spine. What was coming, he wondered, that would make a being who held power over Time itself run and hide?

A streak of green light cut through the night sky and the watch jumped in his palm.

 _Hide me hide me hide me hide me hide me hide me_ , it chanted in the stillness of his mind. He blinked as cold fear pooled in his stomach. They were here. They had come for the Time Lord. What would they do if they failed to find him, or they found him as a human? Tim tucked the not-watch into his pocket and pulled the curtain across his bedroom window.

* * *

Rose was standing in the kitchen, staring at the kettle, trying to push away the phantom feeling of his lips on hers, the scent of him—leather and aftershave and engine grease, the warmth of his breath mingling with hers. Had she been near the window she would have seen the green light and known what it meant, but she wasn't and she didn't. With a sigh she poured tea into a mug, added the sugar and milk that she knew he liked, and turned back to the living room and the exasperating man on her couch.

* * *

Jeremy Baines staggered out of the pub. "Come on, Baines!" Joseph Hutchinson called from further down the street. "Can't hold your drink?"

"You go on," Baines said and waved at his friend. "I'll catch up in a minute." He grinned viciously. "I want to pay my respects to that place that burned down." What was it called again? Something about a wolf. He didn't remember the name, but that wasn't important. He remembered the slag waitress and that bag of shite who tossed them out. He'd like to get his hands on her—she was pretty, and he reckoned she'd sing a different tune without that man looming behind her.

A flash of green light lit up the sky. He frowned and shielded his eyes. He stumbled through the streets, half-convinced that it was nothing, that whatever he'd managed to drink was stronger than he thought. But then he ran into something that wasn't there. It was a short-cut he'd learned back when he was in his first year at Oxford. Behind his dormitory an abandoned lot opened on to the street, and older students often slipped out to the surrounding pubs and bars. Alcohol was forbidden in the dorms but they couldn't be bothered to follow the rules. Their parents paid quite a bit of money for this education, and they were going to get their money's worth.

Something invisible was parked in the middle of the lot. Baines held out his hand and pressed against whatever it was. Green sparkled down the length of something that looked like a rocket. A creaking groan filled the air and a ramp descended. A strange, smoky light shone from the portal and Baines crept closer. "H-hello?" he called, the alcohol making him clumsy and thick. "Anyone there? Is this a prank?" He hesitated for a moment, and then climbed up the ramp and into the strange vehicle.

He would not come out alive.

* * *

Jack came to visit Rose the next day. While he wasn't quite as angry as John had been, he wasn't pleased that she'd decided to shorten her hospital stay. He offered to make tea, but she waved him away. "I'm not an invalid, Jack Harkness," she said with a smile to take the bite out of her words. "I can make tea. Besides, you make it wrong anyway."

Tea wasn't his natural drink. No, Jack preferred coffee, but the Doctor and Rose were addicted to the stuff so he was learning to tolerate it. And when Rose made it he had to admit that it wasn't half bad. He'd learned early on not to ask the Doctor to make tea. While the Time Lord could do many, many impressive things, boil water was apparently not one of them.

They sat on the couch and drank their tea and although Jack noticed that she looked unusually strained he attributed her tension to the fire and its consequences. After a quiet moment Rose set her cup down on the table and turned, her face serious and desperate. "I lost the watch, Jack," she said quietly.

He almost dropped his mug. "What?"

Her lip trembled. "It was in my bag backstage. I tried to get to it but then there was the fire and Tim pulled me out—"

"And a damn good thing he did, too!" Jack interrupted. "You could have died!"

"But the _watch_ , Jack!" Tears dripped down her cheeks. "I don't know if it could survive the fire, he never said! And I just left it!" She wiped at her face angrily and he grabbed her wrist.

"None of that, now," he ordered and hugged her. "Other people left stuff in the bar too, you know. Joan has a crew coming out to clean the place up and I'll be there tomorrow. We'll find it, Rose."

"But what if we don't?" she asked with a sniffle and he could feel moisture leaking through his shirt. "What if I killed him?" Her voice sunk down to a whisper.

"He's alive and well, Rose," Jack reminded her. "He sat with you at the hospital for hours. He held your hand and read—something."

"Dickens," she corrected. "'The Signalman'. 'S his favorite." She sniffed. "He's been on this Charles Dickens kick ever since we met him in Cardiff."

"See?" he asked. "The Doctor is fine."

"But it's not him, Jack! Sometimes it's so close—he'll do something or say something or look at me like I've dribbled on my shirt and it's almost him." She took a deep breath and wiped her eyes. "Sorry. I didn't mean to dump all over you like that." She gave him a watery smile. "S just—hard sometimes."

Jack chuckled. "I know, sweetheart. It's hard enough dealing with the Doctor when he's himself. At least now he's not ranting about 'stupid apes' anymore and pulling that 'superior biology' crap."

She looked down at her hands, clasped in her lap. Her chin trembled. "No. No he isn't."

"There's something else going on here, Rosie," Jack said gently. "I haven't seen you this upset in," he frowned, "well, ever, really."

"He kissed me, Jack," she replied with a sigh.

Jack's eyes widened. "Really?" She nodded. "So, I thought that was a good thing?"

She laughed unpleasantly. Before today Jack Harkness would have said she didn't know how. "It should be. It's what I wanted, right?" She drew her lips into a thin smile. "It's what I've been moaning about for the past few months, an then he goes and does it when he's _human_! And is he himself? I don't, I just—" She looked away. "S all jumbled up in my head, Jack. 'Course, as soon as he was finished he backpedaled right out of it."

"He didn't."

She quirked an eyebrow and the corresponding corner of her mouth up. "He did."

Jack settled down on the couch and kept one arm around her shoulders. He was a little bit in love with the both of them, and if Rose was amenable he'd show her just exactly how he felt—but that wasn't what she needed. She really needed someone to talk to. Ideally she should talk to the Doctor/John, but even as a human he was clueless. Odds are he would try to forget the whole thing happened, and Rose would respect his decision (for a while, anyway), but she needed to blow off steam. The least he could do was listen. "What did he do?"

"He asked for tea!" she exclaimed with a laugh. It wasn't as bitter as her first had been, and Jack took that to be a good sign. "He kisses me and then he says my name—and you know what he can do with that voice." Jack shivered, he did indeed. When he had first met them the Doctor had cut him down to the bone with nothing more than his voice. He'd never heard the Time Lord so angry, and although Rose assured him that she'd faced the same he had never seen the alien speak to her with anything but affection, and the occasional hint of want. "And then he asks for bloody tea!"

"Hopeless," Jack muttered. The pair of them.

* * *

He came to see her the next day. It was Wednesday and he was halfway to the Big Bad Wolf before his brain kicked in and he remembered that it was just a heap of charred wood and stone. He contemplated returning home, calling her and making some excuse. Then he remembered that he'd never gotten her phone number. Come to think of it, he wasn't sure he had a phone.

She wasn't expecting him, some small part of his brain argued. They hadn't made plans. They hadn't done much of anything after she'd brought him the tea. He'd been grateful for something to occupy his hands, a prop he could hide behind so he didn't have to face her, or the consequences of what he'd done. He kissed her. Christ, what was he thinking? She was half his age and they were both leaving in less than three months. Once her doctor came back it was highly unlikely that he'd ever see her again. An ache settled in his chest. How had she managed to worm her way in so deep? He'd made friends before, on those rare times when monetary concerns forced him to stop, and he'd left people behind. There was always a fond sort of regret that tempered his joy at being back on the road, but it was manageable. None of them had left him feeling, well, bereft. Lost. Incomplete. Lonely.

His finger was pressing the buzzer next to her name by the time his mind caught up to his feet. Her voice crackled over the intercom and he responded. There was a pause, a hesitation that he could feel stretching out in front of him, and then the lock clicked and he opened the door. He was up the stairs and standing outside the door to her flat in the space it took him to blink, or perhaps it only seemed that way because his brain had shut down. If it had been working he would have turned around and gone home and put a little distance between himself and the blonde girl behind the door.

Rose was waiting for him, apparently, as the door opened when he drew near. She closed it behind him. He noted with some interest that she was still wearing pajamas, even though it was late in the day, evening really. Her hair was pulled up and held on top of her head in one of those big clips things that Joan always wore when she tended bar. Her face was set in an expression of pleasant neutrality, something he wasn't expecting from her. He'd been able to read her (albeit occasionally incorrectly) from the first time he saw her. She wasn't like Jack, who could fit himself into any situation, any emotion, without a hitch. Her face and her body spoke for her, told him what she was feeling. He could sense tension in her, but not the cause.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

She smiled, but it wasn't the smile he liked to see, the one where her tongue poked out between her teeth and her eyes lit up like stars. "Better, thanks. Jack came to visit yesterday. He wasn't too happy that I was at home."

"He worries bout you," John said. "He cares a great deal."

"If we're measuring how much blokes care by how angry they were, then I'd say you care a great deal too." She winced. Where had those words come from? He blinked. "Look, I'm sorry."

"Rose—"

She shook her head. "It's not my place. You made it clear two days ago: we're not going there." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "So, friends, yeah?"

She was giving him an out. He knew, somehow, that if he took it, if he declared their status as 'friends' that she would accept his decision and do her best to live by it. The only problem was that he wasn't sure he wanted out. She was clever and beautiful and quite possibly the most compassionate person he'd ever met, and she was leaving in less than three months. He could deny her (and himself) and suffer the loneliness with the added question of 'what could have been,' or he could grasp this chance with both hands and maybe, just maybe, the universe would be kind. He made his decision in a split-second, in the amount time it took for her to blink. It was also the amount of time it took for him to step close to her and lift her chin with a finger. "What if I don't want to be friends?" he asked, his voice a low rumble.

She held his gaze levelly, her eyes molten, bottomless. He felt like he could drown in them, fall so deep he would never find the surface again. He didn't much mind. He could feel her heartbeat quickening, noted how her pupils dilated and her lips parted slightly in an unspoken question. He answered her with a kiss.

He was falling, and he never wanted to stop.  



	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some quotes taken from 'World War Three' and 'Dalek.'

Rose had an idea of what would probably happen when she let John into the little flat she'd called home for the past three months. At first she was surprised that he'd come, but the Doctor didn't shy away from her presence, even after moments like _I could save the world but lose you_ and _what use are emotions when you will not save the woman you love_. Physically he was always there, but mentally, emotionally, he was absent. He would tinker with the TARDIS or read and even though he was within touching distance his walls kept her at arm's length.

So when he showed up at her door looking like he'd rather be anywhere but where he was she expected a bit of brooding, or maybe a good argument. She did not expect to be snogged within an inch of her life. Because he was the Doctor, even if he didn't know it, and he didn't _do_ that. Except that he was human now, so maybe he did. Or maybe the Doctor just didn't do _that_ with her. He'd seemed interested enough in Jabe back on Platform One, but that had been when they first met, and she hadn't seen him flirt with anyone since, not even Jack. And _everyone_ flirted with Jack, whether they wanted to or not. It was a knee-jerk reaction to the man's existence.

It occurred to her that she was doing entirely too much thinking, but she really hadn't expected him to push her up against the door and kiss her in a manner that couldn't be considered chaste on any planet. She was stiff and unresponsive for a moment, out of surprise versus any real objection to his actions, but he noticed the hesitation and pulled back slightly. His lips hovered centimeters from hers and his eyes searched her face. "Is this alright?" he asked gently.

"Yes," she replied, a tad breathlessly. "God, yes."

He grinned. "Fantastic." And then he went back to attempting to kiss her until she forgot her own name. The door was cool and solid against her back and he was solid and warm in front of her and she was melting into him, because what else can you do when the man you love more than anything in the world finally gets over his guilt complex and makes a move? The reservation and confusion that had plagued her since she started talking to John Smith vanished as she realized a fundamental truth: he was the Doctor. Really and properly, he was. He didn't just look like the mad alien—in all the ways that mattered they were the same man. John didn't have the weight of an entire species hanging around his neck, but he'd lost his family and to a human man that was his whole world. He was a soldier; he'd been in war and come out changed, broken. He was prickly and brilliant and jealous of anyone who took her time away from him. He knew the most random bits of information about apparently everything, and he possessed an affinity for machines that bordered on savant-like. And it stood to reason that his feelings for her, like everything about him, was an echo of the Doctor's feelings.

He broke the kiss and rested his forehead against hers. He was smiling, she noted. Her brain fixed on the details and shied away from the fact that she had just kissed the Doctor. Well, really he'd been the one doing most of the kissing. They stood like that for a moment, one of his hands cradling the back of her head, the other resting at her waist. Her own arms were at her sides. She'd been so shocked that she hadn't given in to her natural desire to touch him everywhere she could.

"Wanted to do that for ages," he confessed quietly. "Ever since I saw you standing on that stage, wearing that dress." His eyes were soft and open as he catalogued her slightly dazed expression. "Been a while since I've kissed anyone. Glad to see I haven't lost my touch." His eyes sparkled and she hit him on the shoulder. "Oi!" he exclaimed in mock pain. "Abuse, that is!"

"You're just lucky I didn't slap you," she retorted. "Makin' fun of me after you kiss me like that. S your own fault!"

He laughed and pulled her into a hug. She went gladly. "Rose Tyler." He said her name like it was a thing of wonder. "You're a little bit mad."

She grinned at him, her tongue caught between her teeth. "Yeah, an you love it."

He kissed the top of her head. "Don't I just."

* * *

Jack and Joan visited Rose the next day. John was there; he'd come straight over from work and although there were some significant looks passing between the two visitors, neither of them mentioned how close John and Rose were, nor that they were almost always touching. It was clear that something in their relationship had shifted profoundly.

Jack was her friend and thus didn't need a reason to stop by, but that night he had one. "I'm sorry," he told Rose. "Your backpack was destroyed, but we found this." He placed a plane Yale key in her hand. "The chain was melted."

She stared at her TARDIS key. It was warm to the touch, and honestly she hadn't even wondered if it could survive the fire, she'd just assumed it would. Her lip trembled and she took a breath, steadying herself. John put a comforting hand on her shoulder and she covered his fingers with her own. "Did you find anything else?" she asked, trying to sound casual. "I had a watch with the key."

Jack shook his head. "That was it, Rosie." His voice was quiet and he tried to break it to her as gently as possible. "We went over the place with a fine-toothed comb. Either it was destroyed in the fire, or someone else picked it up."

She looked at him then. "D'you think someone could have grabbed it?"

He knew the answer, the only one he could give. "It's always possible, Rosie." A little hope was better than no hope at all.

"We'll put up fliers," John said, taking control. "Offer a reward."

She bit her lip. "I don't have much," she admitted.

He squeezed her shoulder. "I'll take care of it."

She smiled at him then, wide and glowing. He smiled in response, and Jack couldn't help but notice how different he was from the sour man who spent his days hunched over a bottle.

Rose turned back to Jack and Joan with a horrified expression on her face. "Here I am worrying about a watch," she said, "when you've just lost the bar." She reached out and took Joan's hands in hers. "How are you holding up?"

The older woman sighed. "It can be difficult," she admitted. "Oliver and I poured our lives into that place and now we've nothing to show for it."

"Weren't you insured?" John asked.

Joan nodded. "Of course, but it takes time for the paperwork to process." She snorted. "There are layers and layers of red tape."

"We'll think of something," Rose assured her, and then Jack jumped into the conversation, and talk turned to more lighthearted matters.

* * *

Rose met Jack for lunch a few days later. Without a job to occupy her spare hours she felt utterly useless, and she ached to be out and about and into trouble again. It was the first time she'd been out of her flat since she got back from the hospital, and even though it was cloudy and cold Rose thought it was a beautiful day. She hadn't noticed before how much value she placed on her ability to move. Life with the Doctor was dangerous, and even though she and Jack joked about the running (how better to keep her girlish figure and eat all the chips she wanted?) there was a serious side. They were frequently in tight spots, and she needed to be able to trust that her body would obey her. She was young and she hadn't yet completely learned her limits, or how to cope with her body betraying her.

She was recovering, but far too slowly for her own liking. Walking from her flat to the Tai restaurant Jack loved left her tired and out of breath. Before the fire she could have run the same distance with little effort, but she wasn't going to think about that now. They were safe, the Doctor was hidden, and the watch would be found. She repeated the sentence like a mantra in her mind.

"Hey sweetheart!" Jack's usual exuberance cut through the gloomy cloud that seemed to hover around her. She smiled at him. He was trying so hard to be upbeat about the whole situation. At least they were in a time period that was relatively close to her own. He was thousands of years away from the world with which he was familiar. 'The past is another country,' the Doctor said, and Jack was stranded. At least they had each other.

"Hullo Jack." He led her to a table tucked into the corner of the busy restaurant and held her chair for her like a gentleman.

"How are you feeling?" he asked after he slid into the chair across from her.

She shrugged. "Been better."

"Any sign of the watch?"

She shook her head. "Not yet. We were putting up flyers all of yesterday, and he said that it will probably take a few days for them to circulate." She worried her bottom lip with her teeth and stared out the window. "What if we don't find it?" she asked, sounding very small and a little lost. Jack forgot, sometimes, how young she was. He knew that she'd been traveling with the Doctor for months before he met them and when they were on different planets or in different times she kept herself together. She was brave and flexible, but then again she always had the Doctor to lean on. This time _they_ had to be the experts.

He reached across the table and covered her hand with his own. "We'll find it, Rose." His voice conveyed a certainty he wasn't sure he felt.

She took a breath and nodded. He could almost see her put herself back together. By the time she smiled at him anyone who didn't know her would swear that nothing was wrong. "Yeah," she replied, matching his confidence. "We will."

He leaned in close. "Now, tell me. What happened between you two? When we talked before you were all flustered and frustrated and now—" He raised an eyebrow and gestured at her. The fear was there, but buried, and she seemed—lighter. "You're glowing, Rosie." She blushed. His eyebrows climbed higher. "Come on, you can't leave me hanging like that!" He frowned. "That is what you say, right? 'Leave me hanging?'"

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, Jack. Good job." She fidgeted a bit and a smile crept over her face, the kind that hinted at potentially naughty secrets. "He kissed me again."

"Who, John?" Jack couldn't stop a grin. "It's about time!" She laughed and the blush stole back across her cheeks. "I'm assuming that this is a good thing."

Rose nodded vigorously. "Last time—I was just so confused, Jack. This whole situation is _mad_ and I, I didn't want him to hate me for taking advantage of him when he doesn't remember. Or worse, I didn't want to read into his actions. What if John Smith was an entirely different person, someone who loved me and wanted to kiss me and the Doctor came back and didn't?"

"What changed your mind?" Their food arrived, and Jack started in on his Pad Thai.

Rose picked at her curry. "He's so much _himself_ , Jack. Really. The big things—being an alien an the last of his kind an all, they're different, but the little things are the same." A smile flitted across her face. "I bet he swears like a sailor when he cuts himself shaving."

"You'll just have to make up a reason for him to spend the night and find out," Jack replied with a healthy dose of innuendo. "Hang on, how do you know what he does when he shaves?"

She stared at him. "You've heard him yelling. I doubt the TARDIS could keep me from hearing if she tried!"

When they finished the admittedly excellent food and were ready to part ways, Jack moved to help Rose out of her seat but she waved him off. "I'm not an invalid, you know," she reminded him pointedly. "I walked here all on my own and everything."

"The doctor said to take it slow, Rose," he told her severely.

She sighed. "I know, I know." Her brows wrinkled in frustration. "I hate being like this, Jack. What if I don't get better? I can't run like this, even walking tires me out." Her hands curled into fists. "I'm no use to you and the Doctor if I can't run."

"Hey, that's not true." He tilted her chin up so that she was looking him in the eyes, instead of staring at the floor. "You are far more than a pair of gorgeous legs, Rose Tyler."

She met his gaze evenly. "If I can't run then I'm a danger to you both. I won't have you, either of you, getting killed trying to rescue me." She swallowed and pain flashed across her features. "If I can't run I have to go home."

He hugged her. "It won't come to that. The Doctor's got a med bay full of fancy equipment. If you still feel like this when he gets back I'm sure he'll be able to fix you up, right as rain."

She opened her mouth to reply, but was shoved roughly against Jack as a young man barreled past.

Tim was late. He promised his sister he would meet her at her favorite restaurant, a tiny little Thai place not too far from where the Big Bad Wolf had been. It was the fifth anniversary of the day she lost the baby, and it was always hard. He knew that she came to him because he didn't try to make her talk about her feelings or pretend that everything was fine. He let her sit across from him and they ate food that was spicy enough to set his tongue on fire and they talked about everything and nothing.

Two people were standing just in his way, a man and a woman, and they looked like they were in the middle of something important. They were—familiar. He tried to weave past them, but he wasn't quite flexible enough, and he brushed up against the woman rather roughly.

 _Rose._ The watch spoke and the word burned in his mind. _Feelings, so many feelings. Pain and loss and rage and hate and darkness—and then light. A hand, small and human-hot clasped in his. A quick thinking, sharp talking, chain swinging blur of pink and yellow. A force of nature, a second chance. She stood framed against a window three stories high, bathed in the red-orange light of a dying sun while chunks of her planet floated outside, suspended in space, and she cried for her home that was gone. But it wasn't gone, not like his, not locked away and burned to ash, not kicking and screaming. She almost died then and she almost died in a basement in Cardiff and she stayed. She leaned over the table, trapped in 10 Downing Street while the world winds its way toward nuclear holocaust and told him to do it. I could save the world but lose you—but that doesn't matter. She makes hard choices too and it's so good not to be alone any more. And then he thought she was dead and the rage was back but darker, deeper. For a little while he wasn't alone, for precious moments she made him laugh and smile and remember how it felt to be_ alive _instead of to exist._

He staggered a little from the force of the emotions radiating from the watch. He _knew_ her, knew her from just a touch of an alien consciousness. He saw her as an infant in her mother's arms and again as a young woman facing down bitchy skin trampolines and giant green baby-faced monsters and gas mask zombies. He knew how she liked her tea and what a million little gestures and sighs meant—and he knew without a doubt that whatever else was true about the Doctor, he loved this girl—Rose. The alien loved Rose, and he knew that Tim had saved her, had pulled her out of the fire when she was looking for the watch that currently rested in his pocket.

"Watch where you're going!" the man barked. Jack, that was his name. He was a bartender at the Big Bad Wolf.

"Sorry," Tim muttered.

Rose laid a hand on his shoulder. "S okay Tim." She smiled at him. "I never did get a chance to thank you. The doctor said you probably saved my life. Any longer and the carbon monoxide would have gotten the better of me. So, thanks."

He nodded. "Any time. Well, I hope not any time soon." He smiled, embarrassed. "You know what I mean." He'd never been good at talking to girls. They seemed to bring out the worst in him.

She hugged him, and Jack clasped his shoulder. "Thanks," the man said. "Rose is very important to me, and it means a great deal that you helped keep her safe."

 _Dancing and_ dancing _and hands that know the feel of a gun, have taken someone's life. Smooth talker and smooth operator and something is missing, something important. Usurper and con-artist and eventually friend._

The watch was a bit more ambivalent with Jack than it had been with Rose, but there was still a fierce warmth of feeling. Still, it left Tim disturbed. He was dangerous, was Captain Jack. Not as dangerous as the Doctor, but then Tim would be hard pressed to find anyone who was. He offered the man a smile, and then went to join his sister at their customary table. He stroked the watch in his pocket as his eyes followed Rose and Jack out of the restaurant. It was coming for them. It was coming for the Doctor. He shivered.

 _Keep me hidden_ , the watch-that-wasn't instructed. _Keep me safe_.  



	9. Chapter 9

John Smith wasn't exactly sure what he'd done, but he figured that he had to have done something right because he kissed Rose Tyler, and he was allowed to keep kissing her. It wasn't a one-off that had to be covered with embarrassment or apologies. She _wanted_ him to kiss her, she welcomed it. Kissing her was addictive and he knew it was just a gateway drug, because he wanted more of her. He wanted all of her. He'd taken to spending all of his free time with her at her flat (it was much nicer than his cubby, after all, and the company was infinitely better). She'd been in poor spirits after the fire and her subsequent hospital stay (brief though it was) but she seemed to cheer up when he was around. He was glad. At least he could be good for something.

When she found a new job at chippy close to the University he took to walking her home. He remembered the way those stuck-up boys had looked at her and the thought of anyone _daring_ to lay a hand on his Rose sent fire shooting through his veins. Days passed—he went to work and then walked her to the chippy, went to a nearby bar and reappeared in time to walk her home. The first night he followed her up to her flat, intending on giving her a goodbye kiss and wishing her sweet dreams but he found himself sitting on the couch whilst she made tea. He found it harder and harder to leave the little flat and its lovely occupant. Gradually they fell into a rhythm. After her shift at the chippy was over they would have tea and take out, as her culinary skills were limited to breakfast and he should _never_ be allowed to cook. Sometimes they stayed awake talking into the early hours of the morning, sometimes they watched DVD's, and more often than not they ignored whatever was on the telly in favor of testing how long they could kiss without breaking for air. It was comfortable and domestic but strangely pleasant.

Or it would be, if he didn't want more. Because he was tired of leaving her when the DVD ended or the tea went cold or she glanced at the clock and realized that he had to work in four hours. Because when he was with her he could forget about the nightmares that made him reach for the whisky bottle on his battered nightstand. Because he was _happy_ for the first time in so god-damned long that he hardly remembered what it felt like.

And that was why he was standing outside the apartment of one Captain Jack Harkness (who he doubted was ever _really_ a Captain, no matter what Rose seemed to believe). Because it had been decades (literally) since he'd been in this position and he needed help. What he had/has/could have with Rose Tyler was _important_ and there was no way in hell he was going to fuck up his first chance at happiness since—yes. He knocked on the smooth wood of the door, and when he opened he wasn't sure who was more surprised—himself, or Jack Harkness.

The other man hid his confusion behind a flirtatious smile and a leer. "Hello handsome."

John rolled his eyes. "Save it, Harkness," he said curtly as he stepped into the tiny flat. It was a studio, but well-kept and immaculately tidy. In fact, if the occupant wasn't standing in front of him John would have said it was unoccupied. One more mark in favor of Harkness belonging to some sort of paramilitary organization. _No one_ was that neat without years of training. He could probably vanish in less than an hour and leave no trace of his presence.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?" Harkness asked, a light touch of irony coloring his voice.

Here was the moment of truth. John looked away. "Ineedyourhelp," he said quickly.

Harkness blinked. "Sorry, didn't catch that. You've got to talk slower."

John sighed. "I need your help."

"With what?" He'd expected Harkness to gloat a bit, lord it over him that John was coming to a man he'd been habitually short with and scornful of, but all he received was confusion.

"Rose," he replied shortly.

"Not that I would _love_ to help you out with satisfying Rosie," Jack replied suggestively, "but I'm pretty sure she'd rather just have you."

"Not like that, you stupid ape," John bit back. He flung out his hands. "I'm no good at this 'relationship' stuff, Harkness. I'm not at all good for her, she's twenty years younger than me—what do I _do_?" He thought for a moment that the other man was choking—until he glanced over and realized that Harkness was trying desperately not to laugh. The other man lost the battle and broke into a series of raucous gawfs. "Don't see what's so funny about it myself," John grumbled.

When Harkness could talk again he wiped his eyes and shook his head. "John, you are _way_ over thinking this. It's _Rose_ we're talking about, she doesn't expect you to suddenly change into the perfect boyfriend just because you two started shagging." He paused. "You have been shagging, right?"

John didn't dignify that with an answer. "But that's the point, Harkness. It's _Rose_."

The other man grinned. "You know what Rose loves? Dancing. And there just so happens to be a bit of a charity do coming up." He snagged a flyer from its place on the fridge and held it out to John.

He perused it for a moment, and then groaned. "In a club? Me?"

"Joan and I are going," Harkness offered. "Make it a double date. Show her you're willing to make a fool of yourself to make her happy." He grinned. "I'm sure she'll be _very_ appreciative."

John grabbed at the opportunity to turn the conversation away from him and Rose and Jack's ideas about their activities. "Speaking of your lady friend, you told her that you're leaving in a month and a half?"

"Joan knows," the other man replied. "Believe it or not, I'm relatively upfront when I'm in a relationship with someone."

John blinked. "And she's okay with that?"

Harkness shrugged. "She's not looking for anything serious, and neither am I. It's nothing like, say, 1913, but people still seem to think that as a widow, Joan should spend her whole life pining after her dead husband. Call me crazy, but I'd like to think that Oliver would want to be happy. We're consenting adults and we're enjoying each other, and that should be enough justification, don't you think?" He pinned John with a hard glare, and the other man realized that perhaps he'd pushed a bit too far.

"Sorry, Jack," he said quietly.

Harkness grinned at him. "No harm, no foul. Now go ask Rose to the dance!"

* * *

Jenny shivered. It was going on two in the morning and she was walking back to the dingy flat she shared with Robert. She hoped he would be asleep when she got there. Money had been tight ever since the Big Bad Wolf burned down, her new job paid two pounds less an hour and he'd been in a bad mood ever since. As soon as he got back on his feet things would get better. He'd promised. As soon as he found a new job she could quit working and he wouldn't be angry anymore and life would go back to the way it had been when they'd first started out. She knew that he loved her, knew that was why he was so angry (because he couldn't provide for her like he wanted to), but she didn't want to fight. Not tonight. She was tired, so tired.

A hand shot out of the darkness and clamped tight over her mouth. Another grabbed her around her waist and pulled her into the shadows of a nearby alley. She tried to scream, tried to struggle and bite at the hand that covered her mouth but the arms were too strong. It was like trying to fight a statue; they were cold and hard in a way that flesh should not be.

"Hush hush, little bird," a voice grated near her ear. "Mother of mine is waiting." Cold lips twisted into a demented grin against the warm skin of her neck. "Oh, she'll like you, I think. She likes the pretty, damaged ones." And then she was moving, her feet dragging on the asphalt as the arms pulled her deeper into the shadows.

When she emerged several hours later she was no longer Jenny. She sniffed deeply. The hunt was on.

* * *

John paced. It was ridiculous, getting this worked up. He was on the verge of panicking because he was going to ask Rose Tyler to a dance. Ludicrous! The whole situation was ludicrous! He'd faced down enemy troops, seen horrors that most human beings had never dreamt of, and he was frightened of asking a woman on a date. He snorted. If the Brigadier could see him now he'd have words for John's actions—words like cowardice. But wasn't he the coward every time?

Not for her. He could be brave, for her. So he met her at the chippy, as always, and walked her home, as always, and followed her up the stairs and through the door and onto the couch, as always. And when they were both sitting with mugs of tea at hand, he turned to her, and asked, very seriously, if she liked to dance. Well, if she would like to go to a dance. With him. Maybe. Seeing as how Jack and Joan were going as well and it's been a while since they've all been out together.

She held up her hand and he could see the corners of her mouth turning up, but she kept the smirk off of her face. Mostly. "Are you asking me on a date?" she asked.

He cleared his throat. "Ah, yes. Yes I am, Rose Tyler."

The smirk spread across her lips unhindered and one eyebrow rose towards her hairline. "An' did I hear you right, are you asking me to a dance?"

"Yes," he said.

"Are you sure you know how?" Her cheeky, tongue-touched smile made an appearance. "To dance, I mean?"

He huffed. "Forty-two years old, me. I think you can assume that at some point I've danced."

"Not that I've seen," she shot back.

It was his turn to raise an eyebrow. "Are you asking for a demonstration?"

She leaned closer to him and worried her bottom lip with her teeth for a moment. "Maybe I am," she murmured.

A slow smile spread across his face. "Prepare to be amazed, Rose Tyler."

She stood and held out her hand. "You've got the moves? Show me your moves."

He took her hand and let her pull him to his feet because he loved a challenge and he loved her, and combined they were the perfect blend of anticipation and desire. His hands settled on the smooth curve of her hips and her arms slipped around his neck. "Shouldn't there be music if we're going to dance?" he asked.

She flashed him another tongue-touched smile. "D'you need notes? Because I've got notes."

He smirked. "Rose Tyler," he murmured, and he could feel her shiver in his arms. "Never been one for following directions, me. I prefer to find my own way."

"You think you're so impressive," she replied with a laugh.

He leaned in until his lips brushed her ear. "I _am_ so impressive," he said and her breath hitched just a bit. His hands drifted down until he was cupping her arse. She'd changed out of the chippy's uniform when they'd gotten back to her flat—claimed that if he was around she wanted to look good and no one looked good in polyester. He thought she looked adorable, but he liked what she came out in more. A red halter top wrapped around her neck and flowed down over her chest and her stomach and met the top of a short black skirt. He definitely approved of the skirt, especially as she so seldom wore them.

John pulled her closer and Rose tightened her arms around him. One hand splayed out just below where his neck met his shoulders and the other toyed with the short strands of his hair. They weren't exactly dancing, not to any noticeable pattern, but he led and she followed effortlessly. He slid his hands up the curves of her hip, brushed the sides of her breasts, and followed the lines of her arms to her hands. He threaded his fingers through hers and then spun her away. When he brought her back to him she was facing away and her back was pressed against his chest.

She knew the rhythm of this dance, and she undulated to music that only she could hear, a music that kept time with their heart beats. The feel of her pulse against his chest melded with his own, and the resulting double-beat was exotic and familiar all at once, like something he remembered out of a dream. Her hands slid up the sides of his thighs as she arched her arse against him. He bit back a groan and let his own hands move across and play with the hem of her skirt. He dropped soft, open-mouthed kisses on her neck and shoulders and she sighed appreciatively. She gasped when he bit the curve where her neck met her shoulders. Her hands clutched at the fabric of his jeans and she laid her head back, offering up more of her skin to him. He kissed around the thin strap of her top as one hand moved up her leg and slipped beneath the flimsy red fabric and over her stomach. He paused just below the swell of her breast and she made a soft, needy sound. He pressed his smirk into the side of her neck as he shifted his hand up a few inches and she sighed in relief.

Rose turned the tables on him when she slid down his body, and then back up again. She could feel his erection through the thin fabric of her skirt and his shudder sent little tendrils of fire through her skin. John pulled her back against him, one hand caressing her breast. She'd gone bra-less, didn't have any that would work with the shirt, not with her anyway, and she was glad. One less barrier between his skin and hers. She could feel the pulse of his heartbeat against her back—one heart, but it was beating almost fast enough for two. It was nice to know that she wasn't the only one wanting, for once.

"Rose Tyler," he murmured and _god_ she loved how he said her name. "It would be you." His hand that wasn't occupied with teasing her nipple until she moaned crept up beneath the hem of her skirt. His palm was rough against her smooth skin and that brought her back to reality. She stiffened and he froze.

"Wait," she said and he pulled back.

"I'm sorry," he began, and she could see the walls crashing down, could feel him withdrawing back behind his barriers. "I thought—"

"I do," Rose replied quickly. "I do, more than anything, but—I need to know that _you_ do." He stared at her, brow wrinkled in confusion. "Because you can back out of this, you know. At any time you can stop and I'll be okay. We'll go back to being friends and that's that." She took a deep breath and forged ahead. "But if we do this, if we _dance_ —there's no going back. If—if you wake up tomorrow and you regret this, or you want to forget it, I'm sorry, but I _can't_."

He took a breath to tell her quite firmly that she was being ridiculous, but then her voice broke on the last word and his irritation fled because he realized that she _meant_ it. She was trying so hard to remain still in his arms but he could feel her tremble faintly. She was giving him an out, she was always giving him outs like she expected him to take them and bolt as far and fast away from her as he could. Someone had hurt her in the past, hurt her badly enough that she was standing, pressed against his erection with one of his hands up her shirt and the other working its way up her skirt and she still couldn't believe that he would _want her_.

And that made him furious. He wished that he had a time machine so that he could go back to whatever idiot had hurt the woman he loved and punch that bastard in the face. "Oh Rose," he murmured. "I will _never_ forget you, and I promise that in the morning I will probably want to shag you rotten. I want to go to sleep and wake up next to you. I—there's nothing I want more." He let his hands slide out from beneath the fabric of her clothing, and he turned her gently until she was facing him so that she could look him in the eye and _know_ that he spoke the truth. "There is _nothing_ that I want more than what we're about to do," he told her seriously, and then he tilted her chin up and his lips met hers.

It was a tender, delicate kiss, a reassurance and a promise. She melted into him for a moment, and then she stepped back. He missed the softness of her lips, but her eyes were wide and serious and he felt like he was standing on the edge of something _fantastic_. She held out her hand silently. He took it, and she led him down the short hallway to her bedroom. It was the first time he'd been in the vibrantly pink room since the first time he saw her, making eggs in the kitchen, singing a sad song with the sun behind her hair. He remembered how she looked at him, like he was familiar, like she'd known him before. He'd felt it too, a stirring of something that compelled him to get to know her, a certainty that there was something missing in his life and she could provide an answer. Perhaps they were always heading for this. He never was one for destiny, but it couldn't be a coincidence that she ended up working at his favorite bar, or that her flat was just down the road from his shop. It couldn't be a coincidence that this bright, sparkling girl found him. The universe wasn't that kind.

John decided that he would stop looking a gift horse in the mouth (and wasn't that another daft saying) and get on with enjoying the gift he'd been given. There were precious few second chances in life and he intended to make the most of this one. After all, the clock was ticking. In six weeks she'd be gone and he'd be traveling on his own again. Alone. The word had never sounded so bitter before. He shook himself. He could wallow in his self-pity or he could seize the chance to make a beautiful memory with a beautiful woman. Really, there was no choice.

Rose shut the door behind him and fidgeted with the hem of her skirt for a moment. She moved to shimmy out of it, but he took her hands. "Let me," John requested. She let her hands fall to her sides and he moved closer to her. His fingers found the zip hidden behind a seam and he dragged it slowly down until the fabric fell in a pool at her feet. He let his eyes trace the line of her legs up to the edge of her shiny pink knickers. Of course it was pink—but it suited her. His hands followed his eyes over the swell of her hips and the dip of her waist and the curves of her breasts to where the red halter top tied behind her neck. It was the work of a moment to undo the knot and then the whispy red shirt joined the slinky black skirt on the floor and she was standing before him nearly naked. "Beautiful," he breathed and traced a finger beneath her breasts. She shivered and worried her bottom lip with her teeth.

"Y'know, it just occurred to me that you're a bit overdressed," she drawled and tugged at his jacket sleeve. He went to shrug out of it but she placed her hands on his shoulders. "Let me," she said, echoing his words. He never could refuse her anything, and he found his ability to say no to her definitely impeded by her current state of undress. She pushed the jacket off of his shoulders and he let it fall to the ground. His jumper followed, pulled over his head. He had to help with that, as she was not nearly tall enough to manage it herself. His jeans were next and his breath hitched as she drew the zipper down more slowly than he thought necessary. Her lips twitched and she slipped one clever hand beneath the waistband of his boxers and stroked him. If he hadn't already been hard and straining, he would have been then. As it was he was unable to stop his hips from twitching forward. He groaned and gasped when she squeezed him.

"Minx," he ground out. She withdrew her hand and grasped the elastic of his boxers. In one swift, expert movement she had them with his jeans at his feet. He toed off his boots and pounced. He had her on her back on the bed in the space of a blink, and in another he covered her body with his own. Rose arched up to meet him but he braced himself on his hands and knees and remained above her. "Patience," he chided, and turned his attention to the line of her neck. He started at the curve of her jaw and placed soft, open-mouthed kisses in a line down her skin. He traced the curves of her body down to her breasts with his tongue and she shuddered beneath him. When he sucked a nipple into his mouth her whole body twitched and she bit back a moan. He flicked the little nub with his tongue and was rewarded with a gasp. He moved to her other breast and gave it the same treatment. Wouldn't be fair to pay more attention to one than the other, after all. He continued his taste-test over her stomach—she was ticklish; she sucked in a breath and giggled, but when he reached the conjunction of her legs her giggles trailed off into soft gasps as he rubbed his nose against the damp surface of her knickers.

"Oh, get on with it," she groaned.

John grinned. "And what do we say?" he asked the space between her thighs.

"Please," she whimpered.

He left his position between her legs and crawled up her body. "Your wish is my command," he told her. "Just be careful what you wish for."

"You," she replied simply. "Only you, always you."

"I'm yours, Rose Tyler." He kissed her sweetly. "Only yours, always yours. Now." She licked her lips and his eyes followed her tongue. "Get those knickers off."

He made love to her so gently that she thought she would break apart into a million pieces, lose her grip on the surface of the Earth and spin off into space. Rose had always imagined that the Doctor would be fierce in bed; his wild mood changes and boundless energy seemed to hint at enthusiastic, possibly acrobatic sex. When she imagined them together (and she had, so many times) she pictured some sort of life-or-death struggle or a furious swell of need—not the sweet seduction she'd experienced. Was it because John wasn't the Doctor? But then, she'd always known he could be gentle. He was gruff and harsh and moody, but he held her after she killed her father (and him, and almost the whole world) and let he cry into his jacket. He carried her from the console room when she fell asleep watching him tinker and he tucked her into bed and he even took off her trainers. And when he looked at her—there were times when it seemed like she was the only thing in existence—the only thing that was real.

She had to believe that the Doctor felt the way that John did. He'd come through before, when she checked herself out of the hospital after the Big Bad Wolf burned down. John even had his own tragedy, just scaled down to human size. He was so much _himself_ that it made her want to laugh or cry, she couldn't decide which. But then he shifted and did something _amazingly_ clever with his hips and she was convulsing around him.

Her nails bit into his back and her back arched and her legs tightened around his waist as she pulled him in deeper, deeper. God, she was beautiful, he thought, or tried to think. His body was urging him on, harder, faster, almost there, almost—he thrust home and his whole body clenched as he released his seed into her. For a few blessed moments he felt nothing but the slowly falling pleasure of orgasm, and then his muscles relaxed and he lay sweaty and spent on top of her. When John came back to himself he realized that he was quite a bit heavier than Rose and crushing her was probably not polite. He started to shift but her arms held him steady.

"Just for a moment," she said quietly. "Just—I'd like to hold you."

"I don't plan on goin' anywhere, love," he replied. After a minute of silence she released him and he rolled off of her. Exhaustion pressed down on him and he wrapped an arm around her waist. She snuggled closer to him and fit her body against his.

He slept the night beside her, and when he dreamt it was of frozen waves and snowflakes on bottle-blonde hair.


	10. Chapter 10

John Smith felt lighter than he had in years. He was pretty sure that some of his good cheer was due to the chemicals bouncing around in his frankly magnificent brain—it was amazing what being regularly shagged could do for a man's mood—but the woman he was shagging was responsible for most of it, he would say. Or maybe he'd finally figured out how to live after decades of barely managing to exist. Whatever the reason, he was happy and other people noticed. Jack pegged him the instant the other man saw John. The mechanics at the shop weren't far behind, but even the customers were noticing that something had changed.

It was a week before she asked him to move in with her. Well, 'told' would be more appropriate. She was incredibly level-headed and logical about the whole thing. "You spend every night here," Rose pointed out. "Why bother keeping another flat at all? Why don't you just stay?"

He couldn't come up with any reasons not to, so he did. He informed Mike that he no longer needed the cubby behind the shop and carted his few belongings over to Rose's flat. She'd cleared space in her dresser but he hardly filled up a drawer. It wasn't like he had an extensive wardrobe. Besides enough clothes to fill up a rucksack he had his boots, a copy of Charles Dicksons' short stories, several empty alcohol bottles (which he did _not_ bring with) and a battered leather journal.

He didn't go into Rose's closet and so he didn't see the strange blue box that filled up most of it. He didn't even notice that she _had_ a closet—because he was human now, and like any human who wasn't exactly aware of the TARDIS's existence the perception filter kept him from noticing its presence. It could not, however, stop him from dreaming about the ship, and he dreamt of it often. The war had almost gone, the fire had almost faded from his mind's eye, but the ship remained. He wrote about it sometimes, in his journal. He sketched it in pencil and pen and tried to color it in once or twice. Art was not his forte, although he could almost remember being skilled before. His hands were rough and calloused and his fingers too large to properly render his imaginings. He thought about showing the journal to Rose but decided against it. He was _happy_ damn it, for the first time in a very long time (so long he'd almost forgotten what it felt like). If he showed her what he'd written she'd think he was mad. Well, maybe he was—but so was she, a bit, but if she thought he was too mad, if she thought he was _dangerous_ she might leave. He didn't think he could bear that.

 _She will_ , a little voice whispered in the back of his mind. _She'll leave you all alone and the silence will fall thicker than blood, thicker than asphalt, thicker than naptha and pitch. The fire will follow._ He pushed it away, but the fear remained.

* * *

He was walking home when he saw the girl. She was young (five, maybe six) and she had a red balloon on a string clenched in her delicate hand. They weren't in a bad neighborhood, far from it actually, but a singular child was still odd. She looked at John strangely and sniffed, long and loud like children do when they have a cold.

He crouched down beside her. "Lost your mum?" he asked and gave her a smile, not his usual megawatt, slightly barmy grin, but the softer one he usually saved for Rose.

The girl looked at him with flat, cold eyes. Children didn't have eyes like that and something in the back of his mind was screaming that this was wrong. "No," she said, and her voice was childish but sure. "Brother of mine is here." She looked past him and John glanced over his shoulder. A boy was walking down the street towards them. As he drew nearer John recognized him—he'd been with the group of poncey uni students who'd accosted Rose at the Big Bad Wolf. He stiffened and stood when the boy stopped a few feet away.

"Sister of mine," them boy said formally.

"Brother," she replied.

"Well then," John said with forced cheer, "looks like you're all set here." He gave the boy a chilly smile and then turned back to his walk. Rose was waiting, after all, and he wasn't about to let anything ruin his day. The dance was tonight and he'd broken down and bought a suit. He'd grumbled, of course, but he actually didn't mind all that much because Rose was going to be wearing that dress he liked—the red one that clung to her like a second skin. The fabric was smooth and silky and hid so very little. She'd be knickerless beneath it, she'd told him so (she liked to watch him squirm). And afterwards—he grinned. The dress looked lovely on her, but it looked better pooled on the floor of their bedroom.

* * *

Rose held the dress up against her body. The TARDIS had thoughtfully provided a floor-to-ceiling mirror for her. She laid a hand on the smooth coral wall and smiled. "Thanks," she murmured. The TARDIS hummed a contented reply. Rose wondered how she could have ever doubted that the ship was alive. She wasn't a person, but she had a definite personality. When the Doctor was tinkering unnecessarily, for example, she'd shoo him away with some well-placed pyrotechnics—but when they returned from a particularly taxing adventure Rose often found a bath already drawn. It was rather like having a very alien, slightly maternal, housekeeper. There was no other explanation for the dishes, after all. No one did them. The Doctor seemed to be allergic to anything approaching the dreaded label of 'domestic' and Rose didn't do them either—she left them in the sink and a few hours later they were clean again. She supposed that Jack might have—but he'd been bamboozled by the microwave for the first month they'd traveled together, so it was a safe bet that he hadn't discovered a dishwasher, or that if he had he didn't know how to use it.

She was babbling inside her head, she realized. It was ludicrous, but true. God, was she _that_ nervous? They lived together, for crying out loud! He'd claimed her as his wife, his daughter, and occasionally his concubine if the situation called for it, why on Earth was she nervous about a little dance? And then it hit her. They were _on_ Earth and they were going out. As a couple. He wasn't himself, not totally, but it was still a public declaration of their relationship. She'd always thought that they were more than friends, but she still remembered what he'd told Jabe on Platform One: not his wife, nor his mistress, nor his concubine, nor his prostitute. Their relationship was clearly defined by what it wasn't—but neither of them had made much of an effort to define what it _was_. When he was back they were going to have a long talk. She wasn't going to let him wiggle out of it, no sir, not when he had shared her bed (and not when he'd been the one to initiate said bed-sharing).

 _If he came back_ , her traitorous mind whispered. There was still no sign of the watch. Could she keep it up, this life, if the watch was never found and the Doctor never returned? If all she'd ever known was John Smith—maybe. But it wasn't. She'd watched her planet explode, she'd stood in front of his deadliest enemy and told him to put the gun away, she'd let him aim a missile at her to save her planet. She loved him as John Smith _because_ she loved him as the Doctor, as a damaged, prickly alien who gave everything he was to a universe that broke his hearts. She loved _all_ of him, not just the convenient, human packaging.

And when he came back she would tell him.

* * *

Jack and Joan were waiting for them outside the club. John nodded a greeting and waited patiently as Rose gave each of their friends a hug. He was grateful for anything that kept them outside the building that was fairly vibrating from the volume of the music being played within. Forty-two years old, him, and he was afraid to go _dancing_ with the woman he loved. He snorted. Coward every time. But coward or not he couldn't refuse Rose something she so clearly wanted, and so when she tugged on his hand and gave him _that_ smile—the one that made him weak in the knees—he obediently followed her into the club.

The lighting was dim, but not horribly so; he managed to navigate the press of young bodies without tripping over himself or someone else so he counted the night a success so far. They each paid their entrance fee, as the dance was for charity, and then Joan led them to a table that was a bit more secluded than the others.

"I'm going to get a drink," she mouthed. Talking was difficult thanks to the music. It was something with a pulsating beat that seemed to shake his bones.

"I'll join you," he replied. Rose and Jack put in their orders and waved their respective partners off.

As soon as John was out of (relative) earshot Rose turned to Jack. "Have you heard anything?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Sorry, sweetheart. No one's called about the watch. I've been keeping an eye online and Joan has a few friends checking the local second-hand stores, but so far they haven't found anything."

She sighed and he could see the moment she let down her mask. The corners of her mouth turned down and she slumped ever-so-slightly in her chair. "What if it's never found, Jack?" She sounded like she was on the verge of tears. "What if he never comes back?"

He wished that he could tell her that everything was going to be all right, that the Doctor would be back in no time and they could be traveling the stars again. The burden of command was weighing heavily on him, and he was accustomed to bearing it. The pressure must have been overwhelming to someone who wasn't used to it—and if the Doctor didn't return they were both stuck out of their time. Rose would lose seven years and he was thousands of years away from the 51st century (not that he would go there, as he was pretty sure the Time Agency still had a bounty on his head). And he was out of his depth.

Jack wasn't the Doctor. He could admit his shortcomings (few as they were) when applicable, and it was definitely applicable now. He'd been a Time Agent for years. He could blend in seamlessly (or nearly seamlessly)—for a while. All of his excursions into other time (missions at first and cons after) had expiration dates. He was, when he thought about it, a glorified tourist. He was used to leaving. He could tolerate the stifling sexual taboos and laughable technology because he knew that it was temporary. When he considered spending the rest of his life in the twenty-first century the days stretched out in front of him in an endless, joyless, merciless progression of time.

He'd dreamt about it more than once and woken in a cold sweat. This life, the life of Jack Harkness, bartender, wasn't a bad life—but it wasn't for him. Joan was a sweet, funny, wonderful woman—but they weren't anything permanent. She was perfect for a distraction, just like he was perfect as hers, but that was as far as they went. Everything about this life was superficial. His _real_ life was on a sentient, dimensionally transcendent space-and-time ship with her temperamental, sexy, prickly pilot and the beautiful woman said pilot loved (and if Jack was honest with himself, he loved them both more than a little).

He realized, belatedly, that Rose was still talking. "What if he does come back and he hates me?" she asked, her voice small and sad.

Jack reached across the table and took her hand. "Oh, Rosie. I don't think there's a universe that exists where the Doctor could hate you."

She refused to be comforted. "He's human now, Jack, but he's just—he's so _himself_. He thinks the same, he talks the same, he cuts himself in the shower and swears bloody murder. But he _never_ would have kissed me or—any of that." Rose worried her bottom lip with her teeth. "What if he thinks I've taken advantage of him? What if he takes me home?"

"I'll punch him in the face," Jack promised and that at least got him a smile. "We're gonna find the watch, and once the family's out of our hair we're gonna blow this popsicle stand." He gave her his patented Jack Harkness grin, guaranteed to make the ladies fall at your feet. "And once he's back it'll be you, me, and the Doctor traveling the stars—like it should be."

"Tryin' to seduce my date, are you Jack?" a rough northern voice inquired. Joan and John were back.

Jack held up his hands in surrender. "No sir, not me. I choose life."

None of them noticed the small blonde girl who was listening eagerly to every word they said. Her cold, dead eyes sparkled with sinister mirth and her lips twisted into the approximation of a smile. She released the string of her balloon and it floated up to the ceiling until it bounced against the rafters—and popped.

* * *

Rose was surprised to find that John could dance—and not just the bit of swing the Doctor showed her when he'd twirled her around the console in front of Jack (and if he thought she hadn't seen what he was doing he was very, very wrong). He was shy and a little awkward (and it was adorable, although Rose refrained from commenting), but when she moved against him in time with the throbbing beat of one of the fast songs he caught on momentarily. She shouldn't have been surprised, she realized, because the sort of dancing that happened at clubs like this was close to sex-whilst-standing-and-also-in-public, and John was very good at sex (she thought the Doctor would be too).

When the DJ finally put on a slow song he held her close. They were mostly just swaying on the spot, but that was all right because everyone else was too. Her arms were around his neck and his hands rested just above the swell of her hips. John let his head fall until his forehead was resting gently against hers. "Come with me," he breathed.

Rose laughed. "Where?" she asked.

He wasn't laughing. "I mean it," he insisted. "When the time is up—don't go with him."

She pulled back. A frown crept across her face and her brows crinkled. "I can't."

One of his hands left the silky material of her dress and rested against her cheek. They had stopped dancing. The other couples twirled and rocked around them and they stood like a reef in the ocean. "These past few weeks, months—they've been the happiest I've had in a very long time." He radiated vulnerability, and for the first time since he'd aimed a gun at her Rose felt like everything that he was had been laid bare. He was wearing a suit and thus more layers than normal—and he was standing naked in front of her. "I have been _so happy_ with you. You're completely mad, totally barking," and a quicksilver grin flashed across his face, "and I wouldn't have it any other way. I want to see the world standing next to you, Rose Tyler. When I met you I was angry and bitter and so, _so_ alone and you—you made me better." Her lip trembled as she stared into his eyes. It was so much, too much, it was exactly what she wanted to hear—but she wanted the Doctor to say it.

He pressed his warm, soft lips against hers in a kiss that was tender and very nearly chaste. "I love you," he murmured across her mouth.

She knew that he was waiting for her to say it back, and oh god _she wanted to_. She wanted to close her eyes and imagine that the Doctor was holding her with his memory intact and kissing her like she was the most important thing in existence (even though they both knew she wasn't). It would have been nice to pretend, she thought wistfully, but the words wouldn't come out. If he said them again when he was fully himself then she would reply. Then she would give him her greatest secret ( _the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life_ ).

"I can't just disappear," Rose said instead and the shift in his face was like a stab in the gut. She could feel him withdrawing, could feel him pulling back in on himself as the joy drained out of him like water from a sieve. "Give me some time," she pleaded. "I've got to think about it. Being with you—it's been wonderful." She smiled shyly. "It's been better than I ever could have imagined."

"But not enough to make you stay with me," he snapped back. Anger was brewing, anger she thought she just might deserve. Their places had been switched these past few months—she'd been the enigmatic one, forced to hide so much of what she knew to protect him. She just wanted him safe—but he wouldn't see it that way. How could he, when everything he knew told him otherwise?

And then the world exploded around them.

* * *

It didn't actually explode, of course, but a blast of _something_ destroyed the door and rocked the building almost to its foundations. Tables shifted and chairs fell and people screamed. Rose fell and John followed her, covering her with his body. When the dust cleared three people—a plump old man with a gray mustache, Rose's waitress friend Jenny, and one of the boys who had accosted her at the Big Bad Wolf—stood where the DJ had been. It was 'had been,' because all that remained of him was a pile of ash, courtesy of one of the strange weapons the people were wielding. They looked sort-of like lobsters, if lobsters were green and scaly and shot what appeared to be lasers from their bums. The boy—Baines, his friends had called him, John remembered (it was funny the things that the brain fixated on when in danger)—stepped forward.

"Where is the Doctor?" he demanded. "Come out come out wherever you are!"

John felt Rose tense beside him. He tried to shift slowly, to place himself between her and the lunatics with guns. It didn't work, as he discovered when he found one of the odd weapons aimed at him.

"Ah, Mr. Smith," Baines said coolly, a manic smile stretched across his face. "We meet again. And look, there's that tart of a waitress you were defending."

"It's him!" a piping voice exclaimed, and the little girl who had held the red balloon skipped out from the shadows. "He's the Doctor! I heard them talking!"

Baines sniffed. "What have you done, Time Lord?"

"What are you on about?" John asked, frowning. "Put down the guns and we'll talk."

"Oh, I don't think so." If anything, the boy's grin widened. "We've heard about you, Doctor. You're a dangerous man—but not when there are innocents around, and I'd hate for one of them to get injured in your place." He sneered. "Oh, like your girlfriend."

The old man moved faster than humanly possible, and in what seemed like the blink of an eye Rose was ripped from behind John and pulled out in front of the crowd. Jenny held one of the green guns to her forehead. "You've made yourself human," Baines continued. "I'd like you to change back. You're no good to us like this—we need a Time Lord."

"Let her go," John growled. Panic was rising like bile in his throat and rage followed. His world narrowed down to the four lunatics standing in front of him and the gun pressed against the woman he loved.

"Change!" Baines yelled back.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" he roared. They were mad, completely and totally mad. The whole world had gone mad.

"Then she dies."

John lunged forward. He didn't care that there were three more of them than him, and that one of them was a little girl and another was a boy just barely into university. They'd threatened Rose and everything he was screamed out against that. There was a madness building inside him, a force of quiet, logical insanity that promised retribution beyond measure. Baines caught him easily and threw him back, but it was just enough of a distraction to pull the-thing-that-had-been-Jenny's attention a fraction away from her task. Rose grabbed the alien's wrist, twisted and pulled. Jack had taught her a thing or two about hand-to-hand combat and she was immensely grateful for his lessons as she wrested the gun away and aimed it at Baines. "Drop it," she ordered.

John stared at her. She was breathing quickly and her eyes were wide, but her hands and her voice were steady. She was afraid but not overwhelmed, and once again he wondered just how dangerous her life was.

"Shoot you down!" Baines crowed.

"Try it," she snapped back, "and I'll vaporize you."

"Careful, son of mine," the old man warned. "This was all so that you could live forever."

The warped grin stayed firmly plastered on his face, but Baines set the gun down. "John, Jack," Rose said firmly, "I want you to get all these people out."

"Such fire," the-thing-that-had-been-Jenny mused, "such spirit! I should have taken you, my dear." The alien leered at Rose.

"Stay back," his precious girl warned. Her eyes were hard and angry and, he thought, just a little terrified. "John," she asked reasonably. "Why are you still here?" The people were pouring past them, pouring out of the building.

"I'm not leaving you," he replied.

If she hadn't been totally focused on the strange beings in front of her he thought she'd be rolling her eyes at him. "Go!" Rose snapped. "I'll catch up later."

"And how do you plan on doing that?" the old man asked conversationally. "The minute you turn away we'll shoot."

The corner of her lips twitched up into something that resembled a smirk. "Like this," she replied, and shot the ceiling. The rafters were all ready damaged from the shock of the aliens' entrance. The blast from Rose's stolen weapon was the final straw. The ceiling collapsed, cutting her off from the things-that-had-been-people.

* * *

Jack insisted they go to Rose's flat. John was having none of it. He was not going to bloody leave her in there with those, those _things_! When Harkness grabbed his arm in a futile attempt to pull John away from the building he barely refrained from punching the other man in the face. Thankfully Rose appeared before actual violence could occur.

"What the hell are you doing!" she shouted. "I told you to go!"

"M not leavin' you!" John snapped back. "Not with those maniacs!"

"Well they're not here now!" she yelled and grabbed his hand. "Now _run_!"

* * *

Rose and John took the lead. She could tell by the look on Joan's face that there would be questions later, but at the moment they could wait. Escaping was the easy part, after all. Convincing the two (relatively) normal members of their little group was the hard part. They made it to Rose and John's little flat without incident. Jack was the last in. He locked the door behind them and whirled around to face Rose.

"Do they know where you live?" he demanded.

She shook her head. "No, I only knew Jenny and I never told her."

Jack began to pace. "That'll buy us some time, but not much. They've got our scents now. They'll hunt us down."

"What are they?" John demanded.

"They killed that man," Joan was saying. Her face was blank and her voice was flat. It was shock, Rose knew. She'd felt much the same when she'd stumbled onto the Slitheen's plot to take over the world (and the Prime Minister's body in a cupboard). It was a survival method, she figured; it kept the potentially fatal paralysis of terror at bay. "They just killed him, no warning, nothing."

"Rose." His voice was firm and familiar and it cut through her mind's frantic racing. John laid his large, calloused hands on her shoulders and she looked up into blazing blue eyes. "What is going on here?"

Jack saved her from having to answer. "They're aliens," he replied.

John raised an eyebrow. "Aliens."

"Yeah. Is that a problem?" Jack's friendly, flirty façade was gone. He was calm, but purposeful—hell, he even stood straighter and John was reminded of his first assessment of the man: here was someone who had taken lives, here was someone who used to be a soldier. Like recognized like—but he'd forgotten about Rose. She'd kept her head, she'd held a gun and he believed that if one of those, those aliens, had made a move she'd have fired. She wasn't a soldier; she hadn't been trained to kill. He didn't know how he could be so certain, but he was.

John shrugged. "I've heard stranger theories."

Rose took over explaining. "They're called the Family of Blood, an' they've been hunting us. Well, they've been hunting you." She took a deep breath. "You're not John Smith."

He almost laughed. He would have, if her face hadn't been so serious, if she didn't look like she believed the absurd things she was saying. "Yes I am," he replied. He even pulled out his passport and showed her. "See? John Smith, age forty-two, born in Manchester, England, the United Kingdom."

She shook her head. "That's just a bit of paper." Her voice was firm, but her eyes were uncertain. "Your name is the Doctor. You're a nine-hundred year old Time Lord. Jack's a Time Agent turned conman turned companion from the fifty-first century an' me—you met me in the basement of Henrik's department store when I was surrounded by shop window dummies come to life."

"This isn't funny anymore, Rose." His insides were turning to ice—he could feel the cold tendrils of dread worming their way up from the pit of his stomach. "Those people killed someone. They're obviously mad. Now is not the time to be making up stories."

"They're not stories!" she snapped. "This is the story!" She gestured to the little flat around them. Jack and Joan had vanished at some point in the conversation, he wasn't sure when and he didn't care. All of John's attention was fixed on the woman who seemed bent on destroying him. "All of this, living in a flat, working as a mechanic, _none of it is real_."

"That's enough, Rose." His voice was harsh and his face was set in stern, angry lines. "If you wanted out all you had to do was say so."

"What are you _talking_ about?" she demanded. There were tears standing in her eyes and he felt his resolve weaken, felt his anger dissipate just a bit before it came crashing back. He'd been patient, he'd been understanding. He hadn't pushed when she asked him not to, hadn't tried to get her to tell him more than she was willing to divulge about her life but this—this was going too far.

"Are you trying to let me down gently?" he sneered. "Figured you'd pull one over the daft old soldier who thought he loved you? Just come out and say it, Rose, say that you don't want me, say that you'd rather have Jack and this _Doctor_ who _abandoned_ you without a second thought—"

It was at that moment that her palm slammed against his cheek with enough force to turn his head, effectively cutting off his furious tirade. "God!" she shouted. "You are such a bloody bastard!" He gaped at her. It was a cliché, but she was beautiful when she was angry—her eyes sparkled with fury and her cheeks were pink and her chest heaved and he cursed himself for noticing all of that when he was supposed to be fuming. "I _said_ this was a bad plan," she continued, oblivious to his shock. "I _told_ you, but you were all 'I'm the Doctor and I'm a bloody genius, I shite gold an' no one knows better than me!" She gesticulated wildly and he had to take a step back or risk getting hit again—and she hit _hard_. "We had to hide, you said, 'cause those aliens, the Family, they could use you to live forever. Like mayflies, you said, just six months and then we could be off again, travelin' like we're supposed to. An' then you went an' turned yourself _human_ so they wouldn't track us—fat lot of good that did! An' then I lost the bloody watch! You took everything that made you a Time Lord and put it in a fob watch an' I lost it!" She turned away from him and buried her face in her hands.

John was confused and angry and hurt—but he couldn't just stand there and watch her break apart. "Rose," he murmured, and touched her shoulder hesitantly.

She let him tug her around to face him again, let him wrap his arms around her and rest his chin on top of her head. She clung to him, fisted her hands in the fabric of his jumper beneath his ubiquitous leather jacket and pressed her forehead against his chest. He could feel the wet warmth of her tears soaking through to his skin. Her lips were moving, he could feel them, but he couldn't catch what she was saying. He lowered his head.

"I'm sorry," she was mumbling over and over again. "Oh _god_ I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry."

"Hush," he replied gently. "Hush now, Rose. It'll be all right."

She pushed away from him and wiped her eyes. "No," she told him. "No, it won't. You _trusted_ me and I let you down. You told me to keep it safe and I _didn't_."

"No," he agreed. "You kept yourself safe and _that's_ what's important." He looked away. "I don't know what's going on, Rose, but we can fix it. Just please, _please_ stop it with these stories. If you really believe them—we can get you help, we can. Just—stay with me."

It was Rose's turn to stare at him, disbelieving. "You think I've gone barmy," she realized.

John snorted. "You start talking about aliens and watches and all that rubbish; what am I supposed to think?"

"You could trust me," she bit out.

"Because you've been so forthcoming and honest," he snapped back. "Getting any sort of information out of you is like pulling teeth!"

She glared at him, and then she held out her hand. He frowned. "Come on, then," Rose told him. "You want proof? I'll give you proof."

He took her hand because walking without her fingers woven through his felt wrong. "Rose," he said as she practically dragged him down the hallway. "We're going to your bedroom."

"Yeah," she replied. "What of it?" and shot him a glare.

"Your proof that I'm a nine-hundred year-old alien is in your bedroom," he continued, just to be sure he understood where the situation was going.

She didn't respond. Instead, she shoved him through the door and stormed over to her closet. She threw open the door—and he froze. Sitting inside her closet was the blue box—the space and time ship that he'd dreamt about. Maybe he was dreaming now. Maybe this whole day was a nightmare brought about by nerves and a dodgy curry from that place on the corner. Maybe he'd wake up and he'd be curled around Rose in their bed.

He pinched himself. Nothing changed. Rose pulled a key attached to a long silver chain out of the bodice of her dress. John frowned. He knew that key. She wore it everywhere, under her clothes usually. It was the key Jack had given her—all that had been left of her belongings from the fire at the Big Bad Wolf. She slipped it into the lock and turned. The door to the blue box opened.

Rose turned back to face him. "It's called the TARDIS—that stands for Time and Relative Dimension in Space," she said softly. "This is your ship." She laid a hand on the battered wood paneling fondly. "She's alive, you know. I couldn't believe it at first, but she is. She's the last of her kind—just like you." Fire bloomed in his mind's eye at her words, fire and death and silence that ripped into him. She hesitated, suddenly uncertain. "D'you want to come in?" She worried her bottom lip with her teeth.

John shook his head wordlessly, and sank down on the edge of the bed. He rested his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. It was a lie; his entire life was a lie and his nightmares were real. He'd seen the world of this 'Doctor;' it was fire and death and grief. It was loneliness and separation and an endless, doomed struggle against an indifferent, thankless universe. And Rose—was she lying too? Was everything between them, every touch, every kiss, every sweet swell of desire a fiction? Was she only playing a role?

She wanted to go to him, to wrap her arms around him and tell him that everything would be all right. She wanted to—but she didn't, because she'd learned from the Doctor that sweet lies only hurt in the end. So Rose stood in front of him and smoothed the fabric of her dress over her hips, just to give her hands something to do whilst she waited.

"Was any of it real?" he asked after a long moment, in a voice that was tortured and rough. When he raised his face from his hands tear tracks wound down his cheeks.

She knelt in front of him and cupped his face in her hands. "It was all real," she told him softly. Her heart ached for him like a physical wound in her chest. "You don't understand—but you're so much _yourself_. Everything about you—the way you talk, the way you smile, even the way you say my name." His eyes burned into hers with sorrow that could swallow worlds and maybe, just maybe the faintest glimmer of hope. "You've just forgotten," she continued. "And it's time for you to remember."

"What if I don't want to?" he almost begged and the hope in his gaze merged with desperation. "What if this is what I want, this life as this man with you, Rose Tyler?"

She closed her eyes and shook her head. "You can't." Her voice broke. "God, I wish—but you can't."

"Why not?" he demanded.

"Because the universe needs you!" Rose insisted. She opened her eyes and his face swam before her, obscured by the tears she knew were dripping down her cheeks. "I know it's hard and I know it's terrifying, but you do _so much good_. We could travel and laugh and have a decent life here—but it's not enough, not for you and not for me." She took a breath and forged ahead. "I love you. I love you because you're him, but I love _all_ of you—the daft alien bits included. I love the running and the danger and even the times we get thrown in jail. I love seeing other planets and times and meeting new people, and by people I mean aliens."

"Does he love you?" John asked suddenly.

Rose looked away. "I think so." Her voice was quiet, almost wistful. "For a genius you're a bit thick when it comes to 'domestic' things like love," she teased gently. "M not lettin' you wiggle out of this one, though."

"Will he remember this?" John continued. He was looking at her like she was the single most important thing in the whole of creation. It was intoxicating and familiar. His words in 10 Downing Street came to her unbidden: _I could save the world but lose you_.

"I hope so," she breathed.

"Good," he said firmly, and then he kissed her. It was hard and demanding and just this side of punishing. She opened her mouth and let him take what he needed from her. She could taste salt on his lips and she wasn't sure if they were his tears or hers—because it was a glorious kiss, but it was also goodbye.

The door to their bedroom opened behind them, but they were too focused on each other to notice or care. It wasn't until Jack coughed loudly that Rose and John finally separated. "You've got a visitor," Jack told them.

Rose wiped her eyes and took a deep breath to steady herself. John didn't bother. He stared at the ground, his eyes unfocused and unseeing. Rose gave Jack a smile that looked as fake as it felt. She knew that the Doctor was John so if they could find the watch he would be waking up, not dying—so why did it feel like the opposite was true? "Who is it, Jack?" she asked. "Can it wait? We're a little busy here."

Jack shook his head. "You guys want to see this," he assured them—and then Timothy Latimer stepped into the room.

Rose blinked. "Tim?"

He held out his hands. Cradled in his palms, as if it were unbelievably precious, was a watch. A fob watch. "He said that it's time," Tim told them. His eyes were wide and awed. "He said you should open it."

"Where did you find that!" Rose exclaimed and snatched it away from him. She pressed it to her chest just above her heart. It was warm just like it always was, and it hummed and vibrated faintly and if she listened hard she could almost hear him speaking to her, whispering words of reassurance and thanks.

Tim fidgeted. "In the Big Bad Wolf—it called out to me. I grabbed it just after I found you." He held up his hands in surrender when she fixed him with a furious glare. "I wanted to give it back—but he said to hide it. And then—" He swallowed nervously. "Then I was afraid."

"Why?" John asked dully. His eyes remained fixed on the carpet.

"Because I've seen the Doctor," Tim told them. "And he's like fire, and ice, and rage. He's the night and the storm in the heart of the sun."

John closed his eyes. "Stop it," he ordered, but Tim continued.

"He's ancient and forever. He burns at the center of time and he can see the turn of the universe."

"Stop it!" John yelled.

"And he's wonderful," Tim finished. "He's saved the world, the whole universe thousands of times. He finds ordinary people and he makes them better and sometimes—sometimes they make him better."

Rose held out the watch. "Take it," she insisted. He shook his head. She took his hand, dropped the watch on his palm, and folded his fingers over it. Her fingertips brushed the warm metal casing and images flashed through her mind.

* * *

_The sun was high in the sky overhead. A warm breeze blew in from over the turquoise ocean as they walked barefoot on a white sand beach. The skirt of her pink dress fluttered around her legs and she brushed stray strands of hair back behind her ear and the red hibiscus bloom fixed there. He had abandoned his leather jacket and jumper for a white linen shirt. He'd pushed the sleeves up to his elbows earlier when he'd been changing the flat tire on their car and a smudge of grease remained on the back of his right hand. They'd come to Australia on a whim—she'd never been and he'd only been once, a long time ago (and apparently he spent most of that time at an airport so in her opinion that didn't even count). They'd gotten married on a whim too. They didn't need it, not like other people did, but it would make terminology easier (he was so much more than a 'boyfriend' and 'significant other' was stuffy and 'lover' was a little too much information for most people). He'd rounded up someone named Teagan—a woman who traveled with him when he was the Doctor, apparently, to be their witness. Rose purchased the rings in the only jeweler's shop in the tiny town where they'd ended up. Hers had an opal set in the center. She liked the watch the colors shift—they reminded her of the way his eyes matched his mood. He married her on the beach and they made love for the first time as husband and wife on a blanket beneath the stars._

_The marketplace was a riot of color. Tents and awnings sheltered vendors and their wares from the blazing sun. The air was hot and filled with the scent of spices, of cooking meat, of warm bodies and fragrant flowers. Rose wandered through the crowd, John's hand firmly in hers. She wanted somewhere warm after their sojourn to Scotland ended in seven straight days of damp, chilly rain. Her dress was sleeveless and light and sweat still dripped down her neck to her back, but she didn't care. Street vendors filled the marketplace with shouts and cries and descriptions of their wares designed to lure shoppers in. A boy wearing a brilliant yellow cloth wrapped around his lower body and an orange 'Avengers' t-shirt carried dried fish attached to a pole on his shoulder. A little girl chased her sister through the stalls, shrieking with laughter. A man sat on a towel on the ground, shaded by two umbrellas whilst he tended a pot of stew over a fire. Rose's left hand was laced through John's right and her free hand rested on the growing swell of her stomach. Getting pregnant wasn't something they'd planned, but she wouldn't change it for the world. He tugged on her hand and she turned her face to gaze up at him. "Look, Rose," he exclaimed enthusiastically. "They have bananas!" She closed her eyes and let her head fall back—and laughed._

_It was night and the sky was filled with stars. The boat swayed gently in time with the waves that lapped at its TARDIS blue sides. They'd named it the 'Bad Wolf,' in honor of the place that had brought them together. Rose had wanted to call it 'Gallifrey,' because it was their home, but John wanted to make it about who they are, not who they were, and she had given in. It had felt like mourning, at first, and a bit like forgetting, but she'd realized that the Doctor had been her life, but John was her life now—and she was happy. The slap of bare feet on the smooth wooden deck alerted her to their daughter's presence. Susan was eight years old and had her father's blue eyes and her mother's nose and ears, thankfully. Behind her, as always, were Alistair and Ian. Alistair was six and had his father's nose and his mother's smile. Ian looked just like his father, but he had Rose's patience and easy-going nature. He was three, and still young enough to cuddle. He climbed into her lap whilst Alistair and Susan scrambled over the deck. If she let them they'd try and climb the mast. Rose held her youngest child close and breathed in the smell of sea and salt and little boy. A large hand covered her shoulder and soft lips pressed a kiss on her hair. Her husband always moved silently—a feat that she could never accomplish on the 'Bad Wolf's' deck. "I love you," he murmured. "I love you," she replied._

_She buried him at sea. He'd lived long enough to see Susan get her M.D. and Ian graduate with his Master's degree in astronomy and Alistair married to a lovely girl from Manchester, oddly enough. He always said that they were brilliant, of course they were—they were his children, after all, but thank god they took after their mother. When the children were grown they'd continued to travel. It was as natural as breathing to them; they'd only stopped when his health started to fail. Even then she thought it was the waiting that killed him, the necessity of staying in one place. He wasn't meant to be still. She remembered him as he'd lived, not as he'd died—always in motion, always ready for adventure. The children had come back, Susan with her wife, a lovely woman named Anne who worked as a psychologist, Ian with his friend Jamie who was as good as their own daughter, and Alistair with his wife Margret and their children John and Jackie. Even Jack Harkness made an appearance. They'd taken the 'Bad Wolf' out into the Pacific Ocean and then Rose had opened the cardboard box she clutched to her chest and let the wind take his ashes. Jack had held her and let her cry into his shirt and then they'd spent the evening remembering. It was a good life, she thought as she watched her family remember their father and grandfather. It was a good life with a good man. It was enough._

* * *

Rose blinked and the strange scenes were gone—she was back in her flat, one hand covering John's, which was wrapped around the watch. The tiny spark of hope she'd seen early blazed into a wildfire, fueled by stubbornness and sheer desperation. "You saw that," he whispered. She nodded, unable to find words to describe the experience. It was like she'd lived forty years in the space of a breath. Emotions boiled through her, love and fear and heartache and contentment and hope—but beneath it all she knew: it was a dream. A beautiful, fulfilling dream—but only a fantasy. John didn't see that, or he refused to believe it, because he continued to speak. "Those aliens, the 'Family' or what have you—they want the Doctor." He held up the watch. "This is him, you said—we could give them the watch, Rose." His eyes begged her to understand, to agree with him. "We could have that life."

There was a sound like thunder and the world rocked around them. John grabbed her and held her steady. Tim raced to the window. "They're bombing the city!" he yelled. Another concussion almost knocked him off of his feet.

John leapt up and headed for the door, but Rose pulled him back. "You can't!" she cried. "I won't let you!"

"You were happy with me!" he insisted.

"Not finding the watch is one thing," she argued. "I won't let you give them the Doctor."

"It would mean war," Jack said. His voice was quiet but strong and his eyes were sad. "That's why we were hiding. If you give them that watch they'll live forever and you won't get a chance at that life you saw. It'll be fire and death all across the universe."

John closed his eyes. He could see it in his mind—thanks to the watch, no doubt. He couldn't stop it, couldn't stop seeing Jack cut down in the street, couldn't stop seeing Rose in his arms, a trail of red dripping from the corner of her mouth as the light left her eyes. He was a soldier. He knew about hard choices and sacrifice. He knew that his life wasn't worth theirs—wasn't worth Rose. He'd known what was going to happen for a while, but he'd raged against it, he'd searched desperately and allowed himself to cling to the hope that maybe, just maybe it wouldn't come to that. Maybe the universe would be kind. Maybe there was another way.

There wasn't. As soon as he saw the blue box he knew he was going to die. Please, he begged the universe or the Doctor or whoever would listen. Please keep her safe. Please keep her happy. Please, love her like she deserves to be loved.

"Can you give me a minute?" he asked. Jack and Tim left without a word. He turned to Rose. "Promise me something," he said haltingly. "Promise me that you'll remember that I love you, no matter what he does. Promise me that you'll remember that I always will. Promise me that you'll remember that I, at least, had the courage to say it." She nodded and he noted with a sort of detached fascination that there were tears in her eyes. He laid a rough palm against her cheek and kissed her tenderly. "Don't cry for me, precious girl," he murmured. "Now go. I don't want you to see this." She looked for a moment like she was going to disagree, but then she nodded. She glanced over her shoulder at him before she shut the door and he tried to give her a smile. It didn't feel very convincing, and from her expression he thought it must not look convincing either. Then she was gone and he turned the handle and the lock clicked into place—and he opened the watch.

* * *

It was a bit like regenerating—every cell was rewriting itself. It was like being born and dying simultaneously and also sort-of like that bit in _The Matrix_ when Neo learns Kung Fu. Facts and figures and dates and times and people and places poured in until it felt like his head was going to explode. He was freezing and scalding and his heart was pounding like it wanted to jump out of his chest. It was agonizing. He managed not to scream but he couldn't stop the whimpers from escaping. Everything was too bright, too loud. He could hear Rose pacing in the hallway, deduced that Jack was in the living room with Tim Latimer from the vibrations he felt through the floorboards. He discerned the location of the Family's spaceship based on the way their bombs hit the buildings and pavement of the neighborhood. He had precisely thirteen ideas for disabling their ship and exactly four ways to give them exactly what they wanted—eternal life.

He was fresh out of mercy.

* * *

Rose paced the hallway restlessly. Objectively she knew that there was no way she could hurry the process along, but she wanted to, oh, she wanted to so badly. The Doctor had screamed when he became human, screamed like he was being ripped apart. She heard his cries in her dreams sometimes. They pulled her out of sleep in cold sweat and she would wake John just to feel him alive next to her—and then since they were both awake—well.

She wondered what the Doctor would think of their sex life. He'd been interested enough in Jabe, and he'd been quick enough to claim her when Jack came aboard (even if he never actually acted on said claim). He had to know that she was his, and if he hadn't before than he did now.

The door swung open and the Doctor stepped out. She took an involuntary step toward him. He was looking down at the watch he still held in one hand, but when he saw her a warm, gentle smile curved his lips. "Rose Tyler," he said and she shuddered just like she always did—and then she was next to him. She pressed her ear against his chest and let the reassuring rhythm of his double heartbeat soothe away the fear and tension that had plagued her throughout their stay. Cool, leather-clad arms held her in place and she swore that she felt the ghost of his lips against the top of her head. He held her for a moment and then let his arms fall. Rose stepped back. "Captain," he said with a nod in Jack's direction.

Jack, of course, would have none of that. He embraced the Doctor roughly. "Good to have you back," he told the Time Lord.

"Good to be back," the Doctor acknowledged.

Joan stepped forward. She studied him for a moment and then opened her arms. The Doctor flashed a manic grin and gave her a brief hug. "You're a good woman, Joan Redfern, and a saint if you're willing to put up with this 'un." He jerked his finger at Jack, who made a show of being hurt.

Tim Latimer hung back. He was quiet by nature, and a bit shy. It seemed odd to Rose that he'd be feeling self-conscious around the Doctor after he'd been carrying the watch for weeks, but there was something to be said about the Time Lord's presence. She'd never stop joking about his ego, but when he was intense (like now) he tended to suck the air out of the room.

"Thank you," the Doctor told him gravely.

Tim nodded. "You're welcome." He paused. "But, why me? Why could I hear the watch?"

"Oh," the Doctor said off-hand, "you've got an extra synaptic engram in that bonehead of yours. Gives you a bit of telepathy—nothin' to worry about; you were born with it. Just—trust your feelings. Odds are they'll lead you right."

Tim's eyes darted towards Rose and the Doctor's lips twisted in an ironic, self-depreciating smile. He took her hand and led her back into the hall, away from the others. "Now listen, Rose," he began when she opened her mouth. "This is serious. I need you to stay here."

"No chance!" she exclaimed. "I'm going wherever you are."

"I'm going to their ship," he told her firmly. "I've got to end this. If you come along you'll be just one more distraction at best; at worst you'll be one more thing they can use against me."

She stiffened. "Right," she bit out. "Cause I've never saved your life or anything like that."

He rolled his eyes. "Oh, for the love of—" And then he kissed her. It was fast, but forceful enough to leave her breathless. The Doctor rested his forehead on hers and smiled. "You've saved my life a thousand times, Rose Tyler, but I've just had five months of memories replaced in my skull an' I don't have the leisure to sort through them at the moment. If you come with there will be exactly one thing I'll be thinkin' of and it's not blowing up their ship—though it may involve pyrotechnics. So please, stay here with Jack an' Joan an' Timothy." Apparently stunned beyond words, she nodded. He pressed another quick kiss to her lips. "Be back soon."

"Where are you going?" Jack asked as the Doctor opened the flat's front door.

"Got to see a man about a dog," he replied, and then he was gone.


End file.
